Page 38 of Smoke & Ashes
She was motionless for a long time. “It was painful,” she admitted at last. “I’d thought I was doing well. I’d thought we were happy.”
“You were, for a while.” I didn’t know if that was true, but it seemed like what she needed to hear.
“He said he would let me keep the flat. That I could continue to draw money from our accounts, although I have few expenses. I thought that was kind of him.”
I wasn’t sure I did. It felt more like the bare fucking minimum to me, but I wasn’t about to go there. “Did he say anything else?” There were a couple of things I was angling for here, but I didn’t want to bring either of them up if I didn’t have to.
“He said there was—that there was somebody else. That was easier in a way. I wouldn’t have liked to think that he would rather be alone than be with me.”
There was a melancholy logic to that. And part of me wondered whether it wasn’t the loneliness that bothered her more than losing the specific guy. She’d been created to be a companion after all—I say companion, the less polite term would befucktoy—it couldn’t have been easy for her to get used to the idea of living by herself.
“Did he”—this was going to be delicate and I was bad at delicate—“say anything about … about the state of your marriage going forwards.”
“Do you mean did he ask me for a divorce?”
“Yeah.”
Another moment of absolute stillness. “He said it would make things too complicated. Because of my—unusual status. His new partner isn’t especially keen to be married, so there isn’t any pressure there. I believe we will carry on as we are. Legally, at least.”
“And what about you?”
I thought the question confused her, but she made no outward sign of any emotion of any kind. “What about me?”
“Do you want to stay married tohim?”
“I hadn’t given the matter much thought. Somehow it feels of little consequence. I’m not sure I’d want to marry again, not when it involves putting the person I would be marrying in legal jeopardy.”
She was probably right in a sense. The whole marriage gambit had been reckless from the start, and to give Mr Ed his due, there was no especial reason for him to do it unless he genuinely cared about her. “It’s not just a practical issue, though. I mean, I’m not at all qualified to talk about this because the longest relationship I’ve ever had is with my Netflix account, but if you wanted to step back and sayno, this is overthat would be—that would be a thing you could do.”
“No.” Once again I had no clue what she was feeling. “No, I think this is … enough. I regret how this ended, but it’s part of who I am now.”
That made sense. And to be honest she probably had far bigger problems than whether a piece of paper based on fraudulent information said she was technically still legally tied to an estate agent in Maidenhead. “So”—I tried—“what are you going to do now?”
She didn’t make any reply. She sat there frozen in a way that made me really, really, really uncomfortable.
I scooched over and put an arm around her. Like Elise, she’d learned to fake breathing fairly unconsciously so people didn’t get totally weirded out but, like Elise, she’d stop when she was upset. She was warm, and soft—whatever magic animated her covered up that particular feature of the whole “carved of solid marble” thing—but totally unyielding. My hand came to rest on her arm and it was like putting it on the arm of a chair. “It’ll be okay,” I said. Not that it necessarily would. Not that I necessarily knew what okay meant. For either of us.
“I am not sure,” she said at last. “What my purpose is.”
“Join the club.”
“I was created to be loved.” Her head still hadn’t moved. Neither had any other part of her. “If I cannot be, then what am I?”
“Hey.” I cupped a hand under her chin and guided her face around so that she could see me. “We won’t have any of that. You’re…” Shit I sucked at pep talks.A strong independent womanwas so insipid and cliché it was practically a parody of inspirational.Beautifulwas exactly the wrong message to be sending her right now.Immortal and nearly indestructiblewas true but a long way from what she wanted to hear. “Look, I barely know you, kid. But you remind me a lot of somebody I knew, and she was—she was—I’m not sure I’ve even got words for it. She was kind and weird and sweet and sometimes shy and sometimes totally the opposite of shy and she had this surprisingly sardonic sense of humour where you couldn’t tell if she was half as naive as you thought she was.”
She was starting to fake being alive again, which I took as a good sign. “You saywas. Is she…”
“I don’t know. It’s complicated. But she’s not with me anymore, and she might not ever be again.”
“It sounds as if you loved her very much.”
That wasn’t language I’d used before. Not consciously at least. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did.”
“Do you think”—Galatea blinked surprisingly naturally, as if she was considering something—“do you think you could love me?”
I was just trying to work out the most appropriate way to say that she shouldn’t judge herself by what other people thought of her when ... she kissed me. I hadn’t drunk that much while I was waiting for Edward. And I wasn’t feeling as lonely or as melancholy as I had been two weeks ago. And I’d more or less been fine to spend last night getting wound up by a hot coed and then doing nothing about it. But put it all together with the stress and the exhaustion and the not wanting to let Galatea down and her looking so much like somebody I missed so much and for a split second it seemed like a good idea to go with it.
So I went with it. She sank back onto the couch, letting me lean over her and into her and—and this was wrong. Seriously fucking wrong. I jumped up and pulled away from her like she’d been suddenly electrified. I could still taste her on my lips, though, a strange almost dusty taste like a temple to a dead goddess. “That was—I shouldn’t. Fuck, I’m sorry.”
