I hold up my right hand as if I’m taking an oath. “None, I swear. No cheating. No lying. Just no longer feeling like we had anything to talk about. I tried to get the spark back, but when he didn’t put in the same effort, I felt more alone. I was ready to end it, and that’s when he fell from a ladder at work.”
Griffin recoils. “What?”
“He’s a contractor. He was working on a house. It was a workplace accident. He injured his back.”
“That’s awful.”
“Exactly. I couldn’t end it then.”
“You couldn’t?” Griffin sounds thoroughly flummoxed.
“Of course not.” My response is crisp and clear. “That would be cruel. The man was in the hospital for a few days. He was in pain. He could walk, yes. But he was in constant pain from the injury.”
“Right. Sure. But why fake your feelings?” he presses.
“I didn’t fake my feelings entirely. He was still a friend. He wasn’t a jerk,” I say, bristling at the direction this conversation has taken.
We stop at the boulevard, and the light ticks as I wait for it to change from red to green. We’re nearing Champ du Mars, the park that rings the most famous icon of France.
“Well, that’s good. But why stay together if you didn’t love him anymore?”
He makes it sound like it was such a simple answer. But there was nothing easy about those times. “I cared about him as a person, Griffin. I couldn’t just leave him when he needed someone. His family wasn’t in town, and he was trying to get back on his feet.”
“His family should have helped him,” Griffin says resolutely. “They should have come to town.”
“Well, they didn’t.” I wrap my arms around my chest, irritation brewing rapidly in me. I don’t like being judged for my choice. “Look. I stayed because it was the right thing to do. He needed help, and I was the only one there. When I originally planned to break up with him, I was no longer in love, but he was still a good friend, a stable guy. Then, he was injured, and over time, he grew addicted to painkillers, and he turned into a completely different person. He questioned everything I did. He wore me down. He became manipulative. He wasn’t like that before. The man he was when I finally left wasn’t the man he was when I wanted to leave. A year later, he was someone I no longer even recognized. He wasn’t someone I loved and he was no longer a friend, either.” We stop at a tree inside the park, darkness shrouding us. I stare at Griffin, my eyes hard. “You’re judging me, and I don’t like it.”
The harsh reality is he’d probably judge me even more if he knew I let myself become consumed by the madness. The drama of an injured, addicted Richard was a powerful storm, and I was caught in it. I let myself be dragged down. I let his health and my own deep, potent desire to try to fix him become more important than my goals and dreams.
Maybe that’s what I really don’t like.
I felt like I was losing myself then, and Griffin calling me out on it makes it all the more real.
He reaches for me, but I back up. “I didn’t mean to judge. I was just trying to understand what happened, and I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”
“It wasn’t easy, but it’s like you’re saying I made the wrong choice, when I hardly feel I had a choice to make at all,” I say, my pitch rising.
“I’m sorry, Joy. I didn’t mean to be harsh. I can tell this is a sensitive topic, and I don’t want you to think I was judging you.”
I purse my lips. “I feel like a fool now.”
“Please don’t.” He tucks a finger under my chin. “I think it just bothered me that you were with this guy when you didn’t want to be.”
I swallow, wishing he’d take that hand off me, and wishing equally that he’d spread his fingers over my jaw and tug me close, pull my body next to his and let me sink into his arms. “I wanted to do the right thing,” I say, softer this time. “Does that make sense?”
His smile is gentle. “It does, and I do understand. I was just feeling . . . retroactively protective of you.”
I smile back. That’s kind of strangely sweet. “Thank you.”
“So few people want to do the right thing, but you did.”
“I did what made sense at the time.”
“Different things make sense at different times.” His voice goes low, smoky almost. The sound threads into me, as if I’m drawing it into my body. My chest zings.
His hand is still on me, holding my chin. He’s looking at me like I’m the thing that makes the most sense to him right now. Like we make sense.
My entire body pulses with energy. With longing.
Kiss me.
Don’t kiss me.
Take me.
Let me go.
I call upon some store of resistance that I’ve evidently packed inside me for moments just like this. “I should go.”
He drops his hand from my chin.
Touch me again.
“Okay. I’ll walk you home.”
We head past the tower. The park in front of it is teeming with lovers. So many lips are locked together right now.
“We need a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower,” he says, in French.
“We do.”
When I stand next to him, he wraps his arm around my shoulder, and everything about the way he holds me possessively makes so much more sense than it should. His fingers curl over my shoulder, clasping me tight to his side. Our hips touch. I could turn my head and bury my nose in the crook of his neck. Inhale his aftershave and learn if it lingers on his skin this late into the evening. Taste him.
My body is a drum, beating loud and hot.
I grip my phone harder, trying to channel all my physical energy into
