The Girl by the Water by Misty Musette

Author:Misty Musette [Musette, Misty]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2023-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

***

“Move to Paris with me.”

“What?”

His awareness of the world had shrunk down to the two of them, her hands clenched around that fateful compact disc, and the impossible distance between them, when they were standing only a few feet apart. Colin felt like the ground could swallow him any second, and he found that, right in this moment, he wouldn’t have minded.

She took initiative, again, and finally broke that awful silence and their immobility.

“We’re not having this conversation here. Come on,” she said, and promptly left the kitchen.

She didn’t hold the door open for him and Colin had to rush after her, leaving her staff staring and likely wondering what that was all about. He followed her out into the street, and she said nothing as they took the direction of her flat and he struggled to keep up with the strides of someone who’d always been tall but used to slow down for him. Not today.

Louisa did hold the door to her building for him, which meant he had to squeeze past her, resolutely keeping his eyes on the ground lest he look at her and spontaneously burst into tears. There were too many bloody steps in those stairs, keeping him from finally getting an answer to his question, and every one made it clearer that he wasn’t going to like it.

She’s going to leave me, this time.

And he would have deserved it, if only to balance things out.

The flat had not been that big in the morning when he’d left it with a hopeful heart. Now he couldn’t figure out where to stand in the enormous room, while Louisa busied herself around him, taking off her shoes, hanging her scarf, and pouring herself a glass. She didn’t offer him one.

Finally, she fell rather than sat on the edge of the bed, took a sip of her whisky and stared at him over the rim of her tumbler. He was a butterfly, pinned in place and dying slowly, unable to take the first step to what felt like an unavoidable end, coming too fast.

She sighed and lowered her glass.

“Colin. What was that about?”

He was terrified by the sudden realization that he’d never truly fought for anything in his life. And she was going to make him.

“I… I thought we could… I don’t want to be away from you again…”

She bit her lip and looked to the side.

“And you thought asking for me to move to another country after barely a month of getting back in touch would be the solution?”

Clearly, it wasn’t.

“I couldn’t think of anything else…”

Her eyes widened in outrage, and he knew instantaneously that had been the wrong thing to say. Her jaw was clenched tight and she impatiently motioned for him to take a look at it.

Colin was loath to look away from her, scared of what would happen if she left his sight, but he followed her silent order and looked down. It was a passport. In the back of his mind, a little voice told him he already knew what it was.

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