The Art of Devotion by Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

Author:Samantha Bruce-Benjamin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

The taxi left me in the driveway, and I stood looking at the house before going in. Not mine, I realized. I am just a visitor here. Was any of it real? I asked myself, Jack’s revelations pushing their way back to the forefront of my mind. Were we all hiding here from real life? I felt utterly defeated as I stood there trying to make sense of all the summers past and who I was and who I had become. My shoulders shook as sobs convulsed my body, chastising myself for everything I had coveted, every stupid thing I had been so content to believe in. Was I loved? I asked myself. Did Jack ever love me? Did you?

I found you on the veranda, tears streaming down my face; I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know if I could trust you, Adora. Who were you really? And what had you wanted with me? I stood there, preparing to resist you, steeling myself against falling again under your spell. I thought of what Jack had said about Oliver and, although I could never bring myself to believe it, I wondered if you knew or suspected. And if that were the case, then what unhappiness lurked within you? I was torn between hating you, loving you and, ultimately, pitying you. I was about to leave; the summer was over for me. Yet as soon as you turned that perfect head, the white-blond curls moving slowly to reveal the fuchsia bougainvillea and then your aquamarine eyes, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Come,” you said, opening your arms, the faintest of smiles on your lips.

Do you already know? I thought as I stumbled toward you. Are you mocking me? Or are you smiling because you know you have won?

I folded into your arms like a fighter felled in the first round, stunned senseless by losing. You held me there for hours, never letting go, the clear blue sky and sound of the sea beyond the only evidence of what I had once loved in my innocence, before the fall.

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