The Art Of Devotion by Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

Author:Samantha Bruce-Benjamin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Adora

How could she not have tried to help him when he was so clearly in distress? I mourned with her when she told me, but not for her loss, for his. As soon as I could, I went to find him. He needed me more than ever. Clearly, Jack had tried to live without my guidance and couldn’t. I drove around the island for hours, barely able to see through my tears, searching for him in every spot I could think of until, weary from driving, I found him at the gates to our house, slumped against the wall.

I didn’t take him inside, even though I still thought that Genevieve might relent and forgive him for the sins of which he was wholly innocent. He had not rung the doorbell, I assumed because he was unwilling to risk being told to leave, preferring to wait outside in the hope that she would appear. I thought he might be wary of me, considering what he had learned, what I was guilty of doing to him, oblivious then to the whys and the wherefores, of how everything I had done was to help him, to save him. I thought he had come because he perceived me as the only person who could possibly rectify everything with Genevieve. I thought he had no choice but to join me in the car and come away to wherever I might choose to take him.

We went to a quiet restaurant in the hills where he refused to eat. We drank together instead, in total silence, and I grew uncomfortable, laboring under the weight of how miserable I had made him by my actions.

“I loved her like a daughter,” I offered, “but I can’t explain why she left you. When she learned from you what I did, Gigi should have forgiven you. I would have. I can’t explain it, I’m sorry.”

He studied me somberly as I spoke, but I thought I perceived some pity in him. He grew more serious as I offered up a host of paltry excuses, transparent in their deceit, convincing myself that he was naïve enough to believe them, to need to if only to conceive of a way to get her back.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said finally. “I loved her, it’s true, but we don’t need to pretend anymore, do we?”

I didn’t dare believe that he had spoken such words or had reached the understanding of our relationship that I had from the first.

“Adora, you know I came for you,” he said.

“I hoped,” I said, losing myself in him.

“And you know that we must be honest with one another now. We must tell the truth.”

“I know what you’re going to ask me,” I said, shaking my head to ward off the question. “Please don’t make me.”

“Adora,” he urged firmly but kindly, no longer sounding like a boy. “Sebastian: How did it happen?”

I turned my face up to his, like a child in awe of its father, obligated to truth because of the extent of unconditional love offered.

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