Page 38 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
Sebastien sets his fork down with a loud clatter. “You know, I wouldn’t have agreed to breakfast if I’d known it was going to be an interrogation. I just meant the French toast tastes like I thought it would, all right?”
I don’t know why, but he’s lying again. I’m not going to back down this time, though.
“This is going to sound impossible,” I say, “but when I saw you at The Frosty Otter, I recognized you.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but I hold up my hand to silence him.
“Hear me out, please. I recognized you not from meeting you in person, but from my imagination.” As soon as I say it, I realize it sounds even more absurd and creepy out loud than it did in my head. But I’ve already started, so I might as well keep going.
“When I was in eighth grade, I made up a friend for myself, and he and I grew up together. I know that makes me sound like a loser, but having that boy—then man—in my life helped me cope whenever reality was too hard to bear.”
For a second, Sebastien’s face falters. It’s just a twitch of his mouth, and then it’s gone and his lips are pressed into such a bland, ruler-straight line again I wonder if I imagined that they ever moved at all. Even if he had reacted, though, I don’t know whether the twitch was a good sign or a bad one. So I just press onward because I have to get this out in the open.
“I wrote a bunch of short stories over the years, and in my mind’s eye, that same guy was always cast as the star character. He was a Swiss clockmaker. Or a Transylvanian count, mistaken for a vampire. In other vignettes, he sailed on Portuguese explorers, led expeditions across the Sahara, or danced on The Bund in Shanghai during the Roaring Twenties.
“But I digress, because the main point is…that imaginary friend is you. Or at least, you look exactly like him. I’m sorry if my behavior around you has been bewildering, because the truth is, Iambewildered. How can it be that someone I invented actually exists in real life? And what are the chances that our paths crossed? I can’t help but think it has tomeansomething.”
Sebastien flinches again, and this time there’s no mistaking it: He looks like I’ve zapped him with a taser gun at full force. I wouldn’t be surprised if he fell face-first into his Cool Whip.
“Oh god, I’m sorry.” I start rambling, because that’s what I do when I’m nervous. “I’ve done it again and come on way too strong, haven’t I? First I confront you at The Frosty Otter without warning, then I show up at the same bookstore as you, and at your harbor. Now I’ve arrived on your doorstep just as a three-day blizzard started and I forced you to take me in, but I promise I’m not a stalker! This is all just nuts and I’m overwhelmed. Shit shit shit, what was I thinking…”
I’m about to cry, or at the very least hurl myself out into the blizzard so I can die from mortification alone.
But then Sebastien reaches across the counter and takes my hand in his and says softly, “It’s all right.” And there’s a crease between his brows, one I recognize as the expression on my imagined Sebastien whenever he gives in to me. It’s the equivalent of a white flag of surrender, but one borne out of kindness.
“You think I’m crazy,” I whisper, voice quivering.
He shakes his head and looks at me, but his eyes are deep blue pools of remorse, not pity.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he says with the gentleness of a man who once coaxed a frightened polar bear cub off an iceberg and onto his boat to safety. “In all honesty, you might end up concluding thatI’mthe one who’s out of his mind.”
I rub my eyes and swipe away the tears that had threatened to fall. “How is that possible?”
Sebastien closes his eyes for a brief moment, then slides off his barstool and walks around the kitchen island, never letting go of my hand.
“Come with me,” he says. “There’s something I think you’ll want to see.”
SEBASTIEN
I told Juliet only oncewho she was—in the life immediately after her first—and that didn’t go well.
But Helene somehow knows about our past, even if she doesn’t realize it’s more than stories in her head. And if I don’t tell her the truth, she’ll blame herself for me pushing her away. She’s so earnest. I can see how much she wants our connection to be true, as badly as I want it.
Telling her about our history is either a brilliant idea or a disastrous one.
The self-sacrificing side of me hopes that what I’m about to show Helene will send her running as fast as she can. That the knowledge of what will happen if we fall in love will scare her.Then maybe she can move on from these vignettes she’s written—and from me—and have a life free of the shadow of the curse. Even if letting her go means ripping out another piece of my heart, like it did last time.
The terrified side of me fears that Helene will dig in and want to stay after I reveal our history. That there’s nothing I can do against fate, that Avery Drake was an anomaly, and we won’t escape from the curse again.
I know I should be rooting for setting Helene free, but if I’m being honest, I want to be hers, and I want her to be mine. Despite everything.
Romeo and Juliet, the way it was supposed to be.
HELENE
Sebastien leads me up thestaircase, the one made of glass and thick planks of polished wood arranged so they appear to be floating in the air. The wall next to the stairs is a two-story-high window, which gives the impression that the forest isn’t outside, but that the house is actually nestled inside of the woods. As we ascend higher, I get the distinct sensation that I’m levitating among the pine trees. The only difference is I can’t feel the wrath of the blizzard on the other side of the windowpane.
It isn’t until we travel deeper onto the second floor that my stomach starts to express its misgivings, and it’s not just because I didn’t feed it any breakfast. Here, the hallways are dark, the only light from dim sconces on the walls that flicker like waning candlelight.
