Page 67 of Nine Months to Love
“I just want to understand. You said she was cold. But was she always that way? Or did something change?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, staring at a point somewhere past my shoulder. I think he’s going to leave this question unanswered, too, until finally, he starts to speak in a low, hazy murmur. “From what I remember, she was always detached. My father would try to make her happy. Gifts, trips, attention.Nothing worked. She’d accept it all with this... this… this polite distance. The way you’d accept a gift from an aunt you didn’t know and didn’t particularly like.”
“Did he love her?”
“Too much.” His forehead creases. “That was the problem. He poured everything into trying to win her, and she just...took. Never gave anything back. A fucking parasite.”
I think about the journal Natalia gave me, still hidden in my bag back at the estate. The entries I haven’t read yet. “Do you think he knew? That she didn’t love him, I mean?”
“He must have. But he kept trying anyway.” Stefan runs a hand through his hair and lets out a weary sigh. “My father was brilliant in business. Ruthless when he needed to be. But with her, he was just weak. Desperate. It was pathetic to watch.”
“Maybe he just loved her.”
“Love like that isn’t love. Love doesn’t rot you from the inside out.”
“Is that what you think will happen to us? That I’ll destroy you?”
His eyes snap to mine. “You already have.” Before I can respond, he continues. “My father used to write. A lot. Journals, letters he never sent. That’s where I got the idea.”
“The idea for what?”
“Writing about you. The pros and cons list, all of it.” He looks almost embarrassed. “It helped him clear his mind, put things in perspective. I thought maybe it would do the same for me.”
I choose my next words carefully. “Did it?”
“No. Because every time I tried to be objective about you, I failed. A list can’t contain you, Olivia. You can’t be reduced to words on a page, no matter how fucking hard I try. You’re just... you.” He reaches for my hand. “I’m sorry for that, for even trying. You deserved better.”
“Stefan—”
He pulls something from his pocket. A phone. Brand new, still in its box. “I know you lost yours. Everything’s backed up to the cloud. You can restore it whenever you’re ready.”
I take the phone, surprised by the gesture. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
But it’s not nothing. It’s thoughtful and practical and exactly what I need. I turn the box over in my hands, not opening it.
“What’s wrong?” Stefan asks when he sees my hesitation.
“I’ve kind of liked being cut off. From the world, I mean.” I set the phone on the nightstand. “The moment I turn this on, everything comes flooding back. My mother’s calls, work emails, all the chaos.”
“You don’t have to turn it on right now.”
“I know. But I will. Eventually. And then this...” I gesture between us, at the quiet intimacy of breakfast in bed. “… all of this goes away.”
“It doesn’t have to. You choose what to let in and out.”
I want to believe him. But I’ve learned the hard way, over and over again, that wanting something doesn’t make it true.
I pick up a strawberry and examine it instead of looking at him. It’s so perfectly ripe and red, so pure, sohopeful,if that’s even something a fruit can be. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Always.”
“It’s about your parents’ relationship again.”
He half-sighs, half-chuckles. “You’re fixated.”
“I’m curious,” I protest. “I just…” I chew at my lip for a second before plunging ahead. “Do you think there’s any chance your father wasn’t... perfect? That maybe your mother had other reasons for being distant? Maybe even good reasons?”
