William and I glanced at each other. “It’s not weird for us,” he said.
Mia’s brows rose. “Oh…well…”
He continued. “It’s weird for the two of you, however. Adam wants to get married this year. He told me so. You want to wait until you’re done with medical school. Even if he is being a dickhead, I agree with him.”
Adam scowled. “Dickhead?”
I tried to hold back the laugh bubbling up in my throat as Mia stared at William, wide-eyed. The two of them had just gotten served and they knew it.
“Let’s just leave it at that, okay?” I said before it could escalate again. “Maybe we should drop Wil off first.”
“I think I’ll be able to control these two for ten minutes,” Mia said. “Especially since they get to beat on each other for real tomorrow.”
Neither Adam nor William looked at each other, and thankfully my stop was first. As soon as we arrived, I beat it out of that limo like a bat out of awkward hell.
***
“And the lady behind the woman in the striped dress?”
William sat beside me again on the now infamous couch. I sat facing him with a large coffee table book open in my lap, propped so that he couldn’t see the painting I was looking at. I hadn’t mentioned the name or anything else about it, just the page number of the random book I’d pulled off his shelf.
His head was propped back against the wall, his eyes closed. “The one in the black, with the bonnet?”
“Uh, yeah, her.”
His eyes squeezed tighter. “It’s harder to do this with two-dimensional scenes, but…let’s see. She has her hand on the shoulder of the woman in front of her. She’s wearing a black gown, and her bonnet has blue and orange flowers. Around her neck she’s wearing a black choker with a coral cameo pendant.”
Holy crap, this was almost eerie. His recollection was both accurate and detailed. My eyes skimmed over the entire painting—Dance at the Moulin de la Galette by Auguste Renoir—a canvas that depicted hundreds of people in an outdoor dance hall gathering on a Sunday afternoon in Paris. The light and colors of the painting were exquisite.
“Did you want to know anything else? I can tell you about the dancing couples behind them if you want. Or the crowd further back.”
I gently closed the book. “No, that’s okay. I’m sufficiently intimidated.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Intimidated? Why? Because I have a good memory?” He shrugged. Good, ha! “It’s nothing special. I still freak out in crowds.”
“Not true. You did really well at the movie theater today.”
“I had to take breaks,” he said, referring to the multiple times he’d left the movie to take breathers.
“But the breaks were less and less frequent as the movie went on. I’m proud of your progress.” He didn’t reply so I nudged him. “I mean it, Wil. You’re pushing yourself. You’re doing great. There’s no need to downplay all your wonderful accomplishments because you have a few hang-ups. We all do.”
His brown eyes fixed on me, taking in my hair, my lips, my chin. “You have hang-ups? I thought you were perfect.”
Heat flushed my cheeks. “Stop it. You know I’m not.”
His dark brows creased, and he reached up to trace my cheek and my jaw with his thumb. “I don’t know that. I see…a strong woman who is pure and good, and is determined to help others. Not just beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, too.”
I licked my lips as my throat tightened. “Stop. You’re embarrassing me.”
He appeared truly puzzled. “You and I are the only ones here. What are you embarrassed about? The truth is not embarrassing, Jenna.”
I placed the book on the floor at our feet. He promptly bent, scooped it up and replaced it in the exact spot where I’d removed it twenty minutes before.
“Why do you not like to hear positive things about yourself?” he said as he sank down beside me, closer this time.
I shrugged.
“Is that why you don’t want to stay? Because you don’t think you’re good enough to deserve permanence?”
“Wil,” I warned with a sigh. He was like a dog with a bone, unable or unwilling to let this go.
“Tell me, Jenna. I honestly want to understand.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can help you understand. It’s just…my fate, I guess? My gut instinct that tells me this is what I need to do.”
He thought about that for a moment, then reached up and ran his fingers through my hair. “Can your fate ever change? If you found someone…even if it’s someone who’s not your soulmate...” His voice shook with emotion and then died out.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t have all the answers. I just know what I know…and it’s not running away. I promise you…” I said the words, but my heart wasn’t in them today. I just wanted him to hold me. I wanted us to enjoy being in each other’s company. “I’ve learned the hard way that things are not permanent. That everything is temporary.”
“They do end up being temporary if you move on before they can become permanent,” he said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“I can’t expect you to understand.”
“Maybe you should give me the chance to.”
I leaned away from him, settling against the back of the couch, and his hand fell from my hair back into his lap. “You pretty much know it all…until I was five, I lived in a completely different country that got the shit bombed out of it. My sister and I were sent away. My papa made all kinds of promises, but they never happened. I never saw him again. The end.”
William was watching me intently now. He shifted so that he was fully facing me. “He couldn’t have known he was going to die.”
My breath shivered. “He could have come with us. Then he wouldn’t have died in that shitty, pointless war. Instead, he told me I had to be brave. ‘Go to America,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safe and we’ll all be together again soon.’ He was a liar.” Sudden emotion rose up and choked me. I covered my face, not just to hide the tears from William, but to hide my utter shame at what I’d said. I didn’t mean that, Papa. Forgive me.
I felt the weight of William’s arms around my shoulders. I leaned against him, tears streaming quietly down my cheeks. With him this close, I felt the same sense of safety that I’d felt the night of my Disneyland firework freak-out. His solidness was comforting. Soon, I was telling him things I hadn’t told anyone else…ever.