Chapter 33

I parked in Emmanuelle's driveway. The thought of going inside made my palms sweat, and the knot of tension I'd carried around all day multiplied. This conversation would set the tone of the change that was about to come to our relationship. I hated the thought of seeing her less. On the other hand, she deserved this opportunity. She'd worked so hard for it.

"Hey," I called when I stepped into the living room.

Emmanuelle looked up from packing a cardboard box. Her pinched expression was quickly replaced by a lopsided smile. "Hey, I didn't think you'd be done already."

"Last lecture," I reminded her, alarmed by the boxes. There hadn't been any talk about packing yesterday.

"Oh, that's right," she said, but I could see on her face that it had slipped her mind. The air got noticeably tenser. "Come on, let's sit down."

We went to the couch, and I tried very hard to ignore the boxes and piles of stuff that were strewn around the room. If their presence hadn't meant that she was getting ready to leave, I might have been amused by the amount of clothes she possessed. Emmanuelle started talking as soon as we sat, posture relaxed, but it was her eyes that worried me.

"I'm sorry that I'm running out on you like this."

I shook my head and took her hands into my own. "Emmanuelle, you just got the opportunity of a lifetime."

She'd lowered her head but looked up from our joined hands at my words, and her smile turned less sad. "I can still hardly believe it. My family is elated. Hell, I'm elated."

"And you should be."

Emmanuelle stayed quiet for a long, long time, and the prolonged silence made the first real set of nerves descend. Why was she so subdued? Of course, it wasn't great to be apart so much, so early on, but with the help of modern technology, time and distance were hardly as daunting as they could have been otherwise.

"Elle? What is it?"

Her eyes were on our intertwined hands. "I talked to Laurent's assistant. It appears I understood a few things wrong during that phone call."

"What do you mean?"

"He didn't say anything about the time frame. I assumed it would just be a few months. But the contract is … for three."

"Three years?"

Had I just heard right? I stared at her expression. No, she was serious. Fuck. I'd been so busy feeling sorry for myself, regretting that we would be apart at all that I'd never wasted a thought on how long it might actually be. Three years? Three?

"That's … quite a while."

"Yes," she said quietly. "Yes, it is."

I was still processing what this information meant. Keeping a long-distance relationship afloat for that long would require real effort. We would both have to communicate well about our daily lives and work hard at not growing apart.

I looked up when she squeezed my hands, and there was a powerful glimmer burning in her eyes. "So, come with me."

I froze. "What?"

She jumped up from the couch, still holding my hands. "Come with me." I opened my mouth, but she was so excited that she interrupted before I could even utter a word. "It would be fantastic! I could show you my home away from home, the place that shaped me like no other, and your French is adequate enough to get around. We could live together. My family even has a house in the middle of the city that we could use. Oh, the sights I could show you, Sam. Paris in the middle of spring, the wide, cobbled streets and quaint little cafes, the coffee and the food, the vibrating pulse of extravagance at the tip of our fingers."

A little breathless, she paused, and when I still didn't answer, she pulled me to my feet. "I mean it. Come with me. I haven't felt for anyone as strongly as I have for you, not in a long time, and I'm not ready to move on. I want this."

A million thoughts were traveling through my mind at lightning speed. I pictured it for a moment, how it would be. Walking the streets of Paris with her in the height of spring, the breakfasts in bed, the late-night dinners. Having movie marathons and painting sessions at the oddest times, all the laughter, all the intimacy … all the love.

But then Frank invaded my mind, standing in front of his ridiculous chicken pen, deep lines carved into his face by his giant smile. I remembered other faces, too, that had accompanied me over the years. All the history I had in Providence and how precious those roots were to me.

"Emmanuelle, I wish I could. I really do. But how do you expect me to do that? I have my whole life here. It's not that easy. The old man is here, and he isn't getting younger, and I just accepted the permanent teaching position at the RISD, not to mention my responsibilities at the company, and my friends."

"But don't you want to give this a chance?" Her tone acquired a harder edge, and her gaze was beseeching. "Frank has Martha now, so it's hardly like he's alone, and you're not the only one responsible for Hale Hale. Perhaps it wouldn't even be a problem for you to miss teaching a few semesters. You could probably get back to it after, if you wanted."

I emphatically shook my head. "But it's not just a few semesters. We're talking about being away for years, Emmanuelle."

She eyed me, and there was clear disappointment there. "I thought you were just as far in as me. That you wanted this as much as I do."

"I do! You're being ridiculous if you think that I don't want to be with you. I do. God, Emmanuelle, you mean the world to me … but I can't just uproot my whole life to go to France with you at the drop of a hat. I don't even know if I could do the same job there. I'd be completely dependent on you."

"I just thought…" She let go of my hands and swallowed. "I thought for sure that you'd at least consider it."

"I'm sorry, really, that there's no easy solution to this, but you won't be gone forever, right? So what if you go to France and I stay here? We can still have a relationship. It's not going to be easy. But do you think I'll care about you any less with a few thousand miles between us?"

"And that's exactly it," she rasped before wrapping her arms around herself. "I won't care any less, and I don't think you would either, but it's hard enough to focus on my art when you're around. If you're not … I made that mistake once, tried to live in two worlds at once, divided between two things that I—" Her voice croaked. "It almost broke me."

Irene. She's talking about Irene. But that's not me!

"Emmanuelle, I would never force you away from your art. Never. And I would also never want to change just how passionate you feel about it. It's who you are. You're an artist with every fibre of your being."

The tear that slid down her face made my nerves turn into panic. "You will be here, and I will be there, and I cannot do this a second time, Sam. I just can't. Three years—that's ridiculous. It would make me miserable, and it would make you miserable, and it will hurt too much in the end. I shouldn't … I can't let it come to that."

For the first time since I stepped into the house, pain clawed its way into my heart. With it, a weird calm descended, like the one just before a storm. A troubled, most untrustworthy silence. Going with her … that was the one thing I just couldn't do. There was only so much time I had left with the old man, and I'd already lost too much of my family to waste it. I could never leave him, not like I had been left.

"I cannot come with you, Elle."

Her face became closed off, and only the trembling of her lips momentarily belied her emotions. "And I cannot have this kind of relationship with you."

We stared at each other. I wanted to tell her that I loved her. I wanted to bring her home with me to meet Frank. I wanted her to play with the chickens on the lawn, sit at my favourite yew table to have breakfast, and hear me play on my mother's old piano. So many things I still wanted to do; so many things I still wanted to say.

Denial swept through me like a breaker wave. How on earth could I let her walk away?

Then a memory stabbed at me.

"It's an infection," the doctor said, standing outside of the burn unit in the hospital. Through the thick glass of the door, I could spy the beeping monitors, the IV drips leading to the bed, and my mother lying in it.

"What does that mean?" Frank said next to me. He looked ten years older, but it still wasn't as old as I felt. My left leg, still thickly bandaged, throbbed painfully.

"You have to understand." The doctor hesitated. "Her injuries were severe. Almost fifty percent of the surface of her skin was burned. That brings with it a huge risk of infection. Without skin, the body's defence mechanisms can't work how they're supposed to."

"But you saved her," I whispered. "You saved her. She'll be alright, right? She'll be alright."

Frank laid a strong arm around me, but I could already feel myself shaking from the tears. Was this my fault too? Not just the car accident after remaining quiet about Dad's drinking, but Mum contracting this infection? Because I had that panic attack and ripped off my face mask when I was inside her room?

I looked through the thick glass again. My mother was covered by bandages from head to toe, knocked out from the morphine. Whenever she would wake up, gut-wrenching moans would come out of her mouth. She no longer had hair or fingers, both melted off from the fire of the car. Sometimes, the only proof she was alive was the slow lifting of her chest.

"We can only make her comfortable and hope for the best." The doctor gave us both an empathetic look. "I'm very sorry to not be able to give you better news."

He walked away, and I shook in Frank's arms. "Shh, it's okay, Sam."

I sobbed. "I don't want her to leave."

"I know, dear. But you still have me. Me and your grandmother. She'll be back from picking up your brother from the airport soon." My grandfather pulled me against his chest. "We need to be strong now, okay? Your mum, she's fighting hard to stay with us … She loves you very much. But if she can't beat it, then the only thing that we can do is let her go in peace."

I came back to the present with a vengeance. Again, my leg burned fiercely, and I could only take deep shuddering breaths.

"Are you okay?" Emmanuelle asked with concern.

I looked at her. The memory had been so vivid. My mother had died the next day, and right now, I felt equally devastated. Emmanuelle wasn't dead. Her going away to live her dream was something good, something positive, even if it meant that our relationship ended. Still, the main takeaway was the same. Sometimes really loving a person meant letting them go—even if it hurt so terribly you could hardly take a breath.

"I'm okay." Acceptance settled in my stomach, but my heart felt like it was being ripped apart. "I wish you all the best. Despite everything, I really am happy for you."

"Thank you, Sam."

"I'll miss you, Elle." My voice almost broke on her name.

It hurt to think it, but it hurt even more to say it out loud because it made it real, made the change tangible, the breakup certain. I silently begged her not to go, to tell me that we could try, but she just rasped, "I'll miss you, too."

I told her I wouldn't be able to take her to the airport because I had an appointment.

An appointment to break down.

I also didn't kiss her again since I didn't think I could bear it, which I couldn't.

When I got into my car, my hands shook too much to start the motor. How I got home, I couldn't even remember afterward. Somehow, I managed to walk to my room, where I staggered towards the desk, throwing my sketchbook with her face through the room before finally sliding down the wall.

I didn't know how I could hurt this much. How could I hurt this much when I hadn't even known her all that long, when I'd tried so hard to keep my emotions bottled up? Only, in the end, it hadn't mattered.

This woman had come into my life and undermined my defences and, while it had been terrifying, it had felt so incredibly good. When I'd slept next to her, for the first time in fifteen years, there'd been no nightmares, no melancholy gripping me at the oddest moments. I'd been free of the pain at last. Not free of guilt but of the terrible, terrible loneliness that had dominated my life.

I let my head fall into my hands. And then she had left me, just like everyone else had. My parents, my grandmother, Harry. After I had finally let someone in.

The wetness dripping down my face made me realise that I was crying. For the woman I loved or for myself, I didn't know. Either. Both. And I didn't know how to stop either. Just like I didn't know how I could survive not being with her.

It must have been hours later that I heard the front door open, but my mind was still replaying the last glimpse I'd seen of her. Standing at her front door with her green eyes being dark pools of emotions, hand lifted in quiet farewell. God, how much it hurt.

I somehow got myself to bed. I even slept. But my dreams were scary things where old and new monsters waited for me, making me wake up shaking and screaming.

And there was no end to the pain. No end to it at all.