Page 74 of The Truth About Love

Auden

She looks at me through the corner of her eye as she sits on the sofa sipping coffee.

It’s been hours and neither of us have spoken. The tension in the air is so thick I could choke on it, both of us thinking about the heartache of the last several years but neither taking the step to talk about it.

For so long I’ve imagined what I’d say if I were to ever see her again.

Why did you break my heart?

Why didn’t you just talk to me?

Didn’t you love me enough to try and get through it?

I’d have been patient if time was what you needed.

But now I finally have the opportunity, it’s like I’ve lost the ability to speak.

Occasionally, I cast a glance at her. My eyes can’t seem to stop themselves from seeking her out, but it’s too painful to look at her for any longer than a few seconds at a time.

Her beauty is too bright. It always has been, but it has intensified with age. It blinds me even from the edges of my periphery. It’s as if I’m scared to look at her for too long for fear of being turned to stone.

“Why are you here, Auden?” she asks finally.

Her voice is the same sultry husk that I remember, only a little deeper and with more grit. Almost like she’s taken up a smoking habit. I hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

“Winter asked me to be,” I say, as if that’s explanation enough.

She huffs and looks down to pick at the corner of her thumbnail until it starts to bleed.

“Did she offer you money or something?”

My eyes shoot to hers, wide in shock.

She thinks I’m here for money? It may have been a long time since we last saw each other, but I’d have hoped that she knew me better than to think I’d be here for any other reason than to be here for her. But the fact that she even has to ask the question reminds me of how much has changed. We don’t know each other anymore. We’re nothing really more than strangers.

“No, Summer-Raine. I wasn’t offered money.”

“Then why?”

I contemplate just telling her the truth. That even though she ripped my heart straight out of my chest and hurt me more than anyone ever has, she needed me and so I came. That I will always come running if she needs help, like the pathetic heartsick boy I am.

But I don’t say any of that.

For the second time in only a couple of days, I lie.

“I had nothing better to do.”

Though she does nothing more than nod, I know she isn’t pleased with my response. Unlucky for her though, that’s all she’s getting. I might not be able to resist running to her side when she’s in trouble, but I’m still harbouring a fuck-tonne of resentment towards her for leaving me the way she did. I’m not about to go back to treating her like she’s the centre of my universe. She isn’t, not anymore. And she only has herself to blame for that.

My legs begin to ache from standing. Summer-Raine never offered me a seat, so I didn’t take one, but it’s been hours now and it doesn’t look like an invitation is coming to make myself at home.

She scowls at me as I flop into one of two brown leather armchairs surrounding the oak coffee table. When I pinch the fabric and rub it between my fingers, it feels just like butter. Expensive leather. Proper designer shit, not just something you can pick up at Pottery Barn.

It surprises me.

The Summer-Raine I knew was never into materialistic stuff. Sure, she wore designer clothes, but she told me once that’s only because her mother bought them to sweeten the fact that she was a mostly absent figure in her life.

In fact, this whole apartment drips with luxury. From the armchairs to the flat screen television mounted on the wall, to the twelve-person dining table by the floor-to-ceiling windows that looks to have been handcrafted from reclaimed teak root. A bespoke piece, I imagine. Probably cost thousands.

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