“There was no way I could watch you commit academic suicide. I told you that I would go to Hell to rescue you and that’s just what I did.” He lifted his chin. “And I’d do it again.”
Julia leapt forward, jabbing a finger into Gabriel’s chest.
“You don’t get to make decisions for me! This is my life and my dreams. If I want to give them up, who the hell are you to take that decision away from me?
“You’re supposed to love me, Gabriel. You’re supposed to support me when I decide to stand up for myself. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? And instead, you cut a deal with them and dump me?”
“Would you two shut the hell up?” Soraya hissed. “The Dean will be walking through the door any minute. Come on, Julia. Right now.”
She tugged on her client’s elbow while John tried to step in between the two quarreling lovers.
“So that’s it? They say it’s over and it’s over? When have you ever followed the rules, Gabriel? Now you decide to follow them?” Julia asked, still furious.
Gabriel’s expression changed immediately. “I had no choice, Héloise,” he whispered. “Circumstances were beyond—”
“I thought my name was Beatrice. Of course, Abelard abandoned Héloise to keep his job. So I guess the name is more than apt,” she spat, stepping away from him.
At that moment, Professor Martin entered the hallway. He scowled and began walking toward them.
Gabriel turned away from Jeremy, lowering his voice further. “Read my sixth letter. Paragraph four.”
Julia shook her head.
“I’m not your student, Professor. I won’t be doing any reading assignments.”
Soraya pulled Julia away, and the two women hurried down the stairs just as the hearing officers came through the door.
Chapter 27
Gabriel ducked into the men’s room as soon as Julia left. He couldn’t risk calling her, since Jeremy might enter at any moment, but he was far from satisfied that she understood what was happening. Turning on a faucet in order to make noise, he quickly tapped out a short but explanatory email on his iPhone.
Having sent it, he turned off the faucet and exited, tucking his phone into his jacket pocket. He tried very hard to look grim and defeated.
As he walked over to the two men, Jeremy’s cell phone chirped.
* * *
When Julia awoke the next morning the numbness had worn off. Sleep would have been a welcome respite from reality, except for the nightmares. She’d been haunted by various dreams, all involving the morning she woke up alone in the orchard. She was frightened and lost and Gabriel was nowhere to be found.
It was almost noon when she crawled out of bed to check her messages. She’d expected at least a text or a one line email, offering some kind of explanation. But there was nothing.
He’d acted so strangely the day before. On the one hand he’d told her he hadn’t f**ked her; on the other, he’d called her Héloise. She didn’t want to believe that he was so cruel as to flaunt the fact that he was ending things with a play on words, but he’d used the word good-bye.
Her feelings of betrayal ran deep, for Gabriel had promised that he would never leave her. He was far too eager to go back on his promise, she thought, despite the fact that the university had no jurisdiction over his personal life, so long as she was no longer his student.
A dark thought occurred to her. Perhaps Gabriel had tired of her and decided to put an end to their union. The university had simply handed him an opportunity to do so.
If her falling out with Gabriel had occurred a few months earlier, she would have stayed in bed for three days. As it was, she dialed his cell phone with the intention of demanding an explanation. He didn’t answer. She left a terse and impatient voice mail, asking him to call her.
Frustrated, she took a shower, hoping that the time to herself would afford her the opportunity to see her situation with clarity. Unfortunately, all she could think about was the evening in Italy when Gabriel showered her and washed her hair.
After she dressed, she decided to search for Gabriel’s sixth letter, so she could read paragraph four. He’d given her a clue, she thought, as to what was really happening. All she needed to do was find his words.
She wasn’t sure what he meant by letter. Did he mean emails or texts? Or both? If Gabriel was counting the emails, cards, and notes that he’d written to her from the very beginning of their relationship, then by her calculation the sixth letter was a note he’d left her the morning after their horrendous fight in the Dante seminar. Luckily, she kept it.
She pulled out the paper and read it eagerly.
Julianne,
I hope you’ll find everything you need here.
If not, Rachel stocked the vanity in the guest washroom with a number of different items. Please help yourself.
My clothes are at your disposal.
Please choose a sweater as the weather has turned cold today.
Yours,
Gabriel.
Julia wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to embark on a detective mission or to engage in any elaborate decoding of messages. Nevertheless, she turned her attention to the fourth paragraph and tried to figure out what Gabriel had been trying to communicate to her.
He’d lent her the British-racing-green sweater, but she’d returned it. Was he trying to tell her to look at one of the clothing items he’d bought her? Julia pulled out everything he’d ever bought her or that she’d borrowed and placed them all on her bed. She forced herself to take her time examining each item. But there didn’t appear to be anything unusual about any of them.
Was he trying to tell her to weather the storm? Or was he simply saying that his affection for her had turned cold and this was good-bye?
Her anger burned blue. She stomped to the bathroom to wash her hands, catching sight of her image in the mirror. The wide-eyed nervous girl who had started at the University of Toronto in September was gone. Instead, Julia saw a pale and upset young woman, with pinched lips and flashing eyes. She was no longer the timid Rabbit or the seventeen-year-old Beatrice. She was Julianne Mitchell, almost-MA, and she would be damned if she’d spend the rest of her life simply taking the scraps that others deigned to throw at her.
If he has a message for me, he can damn well say it in person, she thought. I’m not going on a scavenger hunt just so he can assuage his conscience.
Yes, she loved him. Looking at the photograph album he made for her birthday, she knew that she would love him forever. But love was not an excuse for cruelty. She was not a plaything, an Héloise, to be dropped like a pair of dirty socks. If he was breaking things off with her, she’d make him say so to her face. She was simply going to give him until after dinner to do so.
In early evening, she walked to the Manulife Building, the key to Gabriel’s apartment in her pocket. With every step she imagined what she would say. She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. She would be strong. And she would demand answers.
As she turned the corner and approached the front door, she saw a tall, impeccably dressed blonde exit the building. The woman looked at her watch and tapped her foot impatiently as the doorman waved over a waiting taxi.
Julia hid behind a tree. She peeked around the trunk in order to take another look.
At first glance, she’d thought the woman in question was Paulina; upon inspection she realized her mistake. Julia breathed a sigh of relief as she approached the building. Seeing Paulina with Gabriel on this day of all days would have been devastating. Surely, he wouldn’t do that to her. Gabriel was supposed to be her Dante. He was supposed to love her enough to travel through Hell to protect her, not take Paulina back the moment their relationship was threatened.
With some trepidation, Julia entered the lobby and waved to the security guard, who recognized her. She decided against announcing her presence to Gabriel and took the elevator to his floor. She shivered as she contemplated what she might find in his apartment.
She didn’t bother to knock but simply let herself in, fearing that she’d find Gabriel compromised. But something strange caught her attention as soon as she’d closed the door. All the lights in the apartment were off and the hall closet was open and half-empty, hangers and shoes haphazardly thrown on the floor. It was very unlike Gabriel to leave things in such a mess.
She switched on several lights and placed her key on the table where he always kept his keys. His keys were not to be found.
“Gabriel? Hello?”
She ventured into the kitchen and was shocked by what she found. An empty bottle of Scotch lay on the counter, next to a broken glass. Dirty plates and cutlery were dumped in the sink.
Steeling herself for what she might find, she walked to the fireplace, only to discover a mark on the wall and scattered glass shards on the floor. She could see Gabriel flinging his Scotch in anger, but she had a hard time imagining him leaving broken pieces for someone to step on.
Desperately worried, she crept down the darkened hall and into the master bedroom. Clothes were strewn across the bed, the drawers to Gabriel’s dresser half-opened. His closet was similarly disarrayed, and Julia noticed that many of his clothes were gone as was his large suitcase.
But what caused her to inhale sharply were the walls. All the framed photographs of her, and of Gabriel and her together, had been removed and piled face down on the bed, leaving the walls bare except for the hooks on which the photographs had been hung.