Page 48 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me
But I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t promise him anything. Not until I found a way to make things right with Annika, and even then, would I really be free to pursue Gabriel?
That kiss and his plea to be with him only proved that we were already more thanjust friends, and even before today we’d noticed too many little intimate details about each other to pretend innocence.
“I’m sorry.”
“Right.” He laughed under his breath and nodded, his jaw clenching as he took a step back, putting distance between us. “Youcan’t. Or you won’t? Why does this scare you so much, Cleo?”
I shook my head, swallowed hard, and said nothing. I didn’t have the answer.
Once again, I said goodbye and walked away.
This time though, he let me go.
When I reached the next corner, I looked over my shoulder.
But Gabriel was already gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The followingSaturday when I got home from the Garment Center after a long day of hunting down textiles and trims for my designs, the lights were on, and Annika’s coat hung on the hook in the hallway.
After mentally psyching myself up, I rapped my knuckles against her door then barged into her bedroom uninvited and froze on the threshold.
Liquor store boxes were stacked in the corner and bare nails stuck out of the walls where her framed prints used to hang.
“Spring cleaning?” I asked as she taped up a box and labeled it.
“I’m going to Paris,” she said just as if she’d announced that she was running to the deli for a pastrami sandwich.
“Paris?” I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe. “For how long?”
She folded an armful of clothes and laid them in the open suitcase on her bed. “I’m moving there.”
It took a moment for the words to register but when they did, they hit with the force of a Mack truck. “You hate me so much that you’removing to Paris?” I blurted.
She turned her back to me and grabbed the rest of the clothes hanging in her closet, leaving wire hangers and dust bunnies behind.
“Not everything is about you, Cleo.”
I knew that but this seemed drastic, not to mention sudden. “When did you decide this?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past month and I realized that I’ve been playing it safe. When did I stop having such big dreams? When did I decide that it was okay to settle for good enough?”
Annika was a Juilliard graduate and a dancer in a post-modern dance company. I thought she wasalreadyliving the dream. If she wasn’t happy at her current dance company, there were a million other opportunities right here on her doorstep.
Which led to the obvious conclusion that she was fleeing New York to get away from her backstabbing friend.
I sank to the floor and sat cross-legged next to a box labeled Summer Clothes and stared at the empty wall where aBreakfast at Tiffany’sposter used to hang.
When Annika moved in two and a half years ago, we painted her walls cotton candy pink and celebrated our new living arrangement with Chinese takeout and an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon.
“What does Paris have that you can’t find in New York?” I asked.
“The Eiffel Tower. The Seine. Flaky croissants and crepes and the Louvre. It’s the City of Lights. The fashion capital.Themost romantic city in the world. I’ve always dreamed of living in Paris, remember?”
How could I forget? In 11thgrade, Annika was obsessed with all things Parisian. That year, she was dating Antoine who was in a synth-pop band that we now referred to as the French Milli Vanilli.
She gave herself a pixie cut, smoked Gauloises, and wore Breton stripes, skinny jeans, and ballet flats.
