Page 73 of The Truth About Love

“He’s still here, isn’t he?”

Her eyes widen and then she nods. “In the guest room.”

Holy shit.

Another panic attack threatens as I realise that this is really happening. Auden is really here, in my apartment, in a room just down the hall.

“Do you want me to stay?” Winter asks on a whisper, still unable to hold my gaze for longer than a few seconds at a time.

“No.” I sit on my hands in a bid to stop them shaking. “You’ve done enough.”

She nods, then stands, wiping her hands down the front of her jeans. “I really am sorry for upsetting you, Sum, but I’m not sorry for calling him.”

“Just go.”

We can talk this out another time, but right now, there’s more pressing matters. Like the man in my guest room who still holds my heart in the palm of his hand, whether he knows it or not.

Winter lets herself out and I listen to the fading sound of her footsteps until all that surrounds me is a deafening, stifling silence. My heart hammers painfully against my ribcage as I steel myself for coming face to face with Auden again.

I’m not ready for this.

I’d need years to adequately prepare myself to see him again, not mere minutes. Part of me still thinks this is all just a figment of my imagination. At the very least a dream that I’ll wake up from in the next few moments. But when a minute passes, then another, and nothing changes, I finally accept that this truly is my reality.

“You can come out now,” I whisper into the stillness.

I close my eyes as the sound of cautious footsteps fill the room.

I smell him instantly. The scent of pine and well-read books floods my senses and makes me dizzy. Even after all this time it’s as familiar to me as my own perfume. In fact, in all the Christmases that have passed since I cut things off between us, I haven’t been able to put up a tree because they remind me too much of him.

“Open your eyes, Summer-Raine,” he says gently, his voice as comforting as a blanket to a small child.

And I do.

My eyes find him and my breath catches.

If it’s possible, he’s even more beautiful now than he was back then.

I say nothing as I trace the lines of his face, memorising every new freckle and crease that the last few years have gifted him with. He still has the same boyish features, but there’s rough stubble on his jaw and a crookedness to his nose that hadn’t been there before.

And all the while, he studies me with the same intensity that I study him.

I stand stock still as he breathes me in, watching his eyes trail over me from head to toe. His gaze is hot as he takes in my body like he remembers what it looks like beneath my clothes, but his gaze is nostalgic rather than lustful or predatory. For a long time, he only looks at me from my chin down, as if steeling himself to meet my eyes.

And when he finally does, it’s as if the last five years never happened at all.

I may have broken his heart so coldly, but he looks at me only with warmth. His eyes shine only with happy memories of us, so brightly I can almost watch them play out in front of me. His lips tip upwards at the corners, his smile as dazzling and easy as I remember.

Our worlds may have changed, we may not know each other anymore, but that magic that was always between us is still there. We don’t belong to each other anymore, but our souls still reach for each other as if we do.

He’s still Auden.

And when he looks at me the way he is now, I’m not the same Summer-Raine who tried to kill herself just days ago or the one who broke his heart back when we were eighteen. I’m the Summer-Raine I was when we spent our nights wrapped together on my balcony in Islamorada, reciting the poetry of W H Auden and imagining the future we were supposed to have together. It’s like I’m eighteen again.

But then he looks away and reality comes crashing down.

I’m still just the damaged girl with baggage a mile high and he’s just the guy my sister called to stop me trying to kill myself again. He’s not here because he loves me, he’s here because Winter asked him to be. Because I’m crazy. Because I’m fucked up. And that’s all I’ll ever be.

Chapter Nineteen

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