Page 98 of Just for a Taste

With a shaky exhale, I let my hands go limp, and they slid out from his fingers. Fighting back tears, I turned from him and forced my eyes to the spot on the floor, where my heart was residing. “You’re going to devour everything around you. You’re going to devour us both.”

I expected him to argue with me, to question a single word, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked a question that tore into me: “You do love me, don’t you? Even after all this?”

Maybe things would be easier if I lied and said I hated him. Maybe that way, I could shatter his heart irreparably and leave no chance between us. Or maybe it would be easy in another way, and it would spur Zeno to double down on his efforts to keep me in the abbey.

But easy wasn’t necessarily right.

“I do,” I whispered. “I really do.”

The opposite of my expectation happened. I had seen countless times how, when cut off from its base and placed in water, a rose would slowly die. No matter how lovingly maintained, once snipped away, there was no choice but to watch the once-vibrant blooms wilt and wither.

With roses, this process took days, or even weeks. With Zeno, it took only seconds.

“You need to leave,” he murmured, staggering to his feet. “You need to leave me here and leave the key with me.”

Despite the weight of our conversation and how everything else had faded away, I hadn’t forgotten the key was against my hip. I reached into my pocket and grasped it so tightly, it threatened to draw blood. Maybe if I held it tight enough, the tiny key would embed itself into my skin, and I wouldn’t have to give it to Zeno.

But hadn’t I known deep down that this was a possibility?

“I—are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said with utter resolve. “You love me, so you must. And I love you, so I must.”

How strongly I wished that he was wrong, that I could argue any of it. But I couldn’t. I shut my eyes tightly, freeing a torrent of tears, and held out my hand. Once I felt the warmth of his own beneath it, I peeled apart my fingers and let the key fall out.

“Thank you,mia passerotta.”

I could hear the smile in Zeno’s voice, just as much as I could the tears. I broke away from him, hugging my arms tightly around myself in lieu of him.

His hand—the one not holding his mortality—gently folded in mine, and I allowed him to walk me over to the bed.

“Just stay a little longer. Please. Just for a few more minutes, hold my hand, and listen to me. That’s all I ask of you.”

I bit my lip and slowly nodded, joining him. The plush was soft, the light was soft, and my hand clasping Zeno’s was as firm as I could make it.

“It scared me when I was younger, how little I felt,” he said, closing his eyes. “I used to think that maybe feeling had been trained out of me, but now I think I was just born with something missing. Some piece in my brain or my soul that was supposed to make me alive. Maybe my body had the knowledge that I never would really be alive.” Zeno’s pale lashes flickered open, and a small, strange smile crossed his lips. “I was able to find some things that made me feel, when I got older. But no one and nothing made me feel as much as you.”

I tried to pull away my hand. “What are you—”

Zeno firmly held mine, looking into my eyes with full sincerity. “I’m not saying any of this to make you stay, Cora.”

“Then why?”

“I just need to say it. I’ve thought this so many times, and I need to say it for once. I need someone to hear me one time in my life.”

“How can I believe you?” I cried. “Don’t you know . . .?”How this makes me feel?

He laughed a short, bitter laugh. “Of course I do. Allow me to be selfish, just for now. See me as I am for a breath. I know you’re the only one who can.”

I tightened my jaw and looked back up at the ceiling, hoping the angle could disperse my tears and prevent them from rolling down my cheeks. Zeno did the same.

“I thought about a lot of ways to make you stay. I considered reinforcing every inch of this abbey, employing dozens of guards. Tying you to the bed, making you look at me every morning and night, just to make you think of me. But—” Zeno placed the key onto his chest and ran his newly freed hand through his hair in a strangely casual gesture. “—I knew I could never truly have you. And I always knew it was my destiny to die alone.”

“It didn’t have to be like this,” I whimpered once I could stifle the words.

“No, it did. I don’t have it in me to love in parts.” He sat up more, foretelling the end of his confession. “This abbey was always my casket. Even if you made me feel alive for a while, I was supposed to die here. I’m ready now, though. I’ve been ready to die for as long as I remember.”

I finally let the sobs break free, so ragged and wretched they wracked my entire body. It was Zeno’s turn, I knew, to have to restrain every muscle in his body not to hug and comfort me. He simply held my hand as I cried until I couldn’t produce tears any longer.

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