I wanted so much to believe that he could see me, that he would see a fair head and know that it was me, that I understood everything now, that I had more faith in him than I ever had before and I loved him as much as I ever had. I stood there with my fists clenched and my eyes straining to see the impossible, and I tried to believe.
I had lied and pretended and hated myself for doing it all, thinking it would buy me and the ones I loved safety. I had been a fool.
There were people on the street, and they shot me looks as they walked by. I had a brief moment of panic, thinking that they recognized me, but then I slowly registered the hot slide of tears on my face, the way my eyes and my chest were aching.
They were looking at me because I was making a scene.
I didn’t even care. At least, at last, I was making a scene for myself and no one else. I did not care if they saw, and I did not care what they thought.
I was not going to be strong for anyone any longer.
Not even for Ethan. I had tried too hard to be strong for him when he had asked me to be honest with him instead, when he had offered to be honest with me. I called up that moment again in my mind, how unhappy I had been and he had been, how afraid I had been of incriminating myself and damaging what was between us, when I could have told him all the truth and had him tell me all the truth. I knew everything now, and I thought I could love him better with truth between us.
Whatever dark deeds had been done and dark secrets had been kept when we were children, whatever darkness ran in my blood or his, seemed distant compared with the memory of how he had listened to whatever I let fall, had offered to help me with no thought of return, and all the time had been doing what he thought was right for himself and for our two cities, as well as for me.
Aunt Leila thought that with my mother’s name spoken and her death avenged, justice would be done. But this was not justice, what was being done to Ethan, any more than what had been done to me was.
I could not stop crying at the thought that he might be seeing me right now and I could not see him, that he might never know I was there at all. Both thoughts seemed unbearable, and I would not bear them, would not bear any of this, for a moment longer.
He had known me and loved me and chosen me, out of all others, and I had been so scared he would change his mind that I had not told him I chose and knew him back. I’d learned my lesson. I’d learned to know Ethan better while he was gone than I had ever allowed myself to know him before. I’d had what few people could ever have—the chance to experience how life would be with someone else in the place of the one I loved, someone who came with all the same luxuries, offered the same place in the world, even wore the same face. Carwyn had never been kind like Ethan, never touched me like Ethan had—gently, considerately, and with willingness to let me go if that was what I wanted. That was why I never wanted anyone else but Ethan to touch me, and for him never to stop.
I had thought we would have so much longer together. I had thought that if I behaved a certain way, I could coax a guarantee from the world.
But there were no guarantees, and I might never see Ethan again—his drowning-deep dark eyes, the lines of his face that bore a resemblance to every one of his family and only ended up marking how very different he was from them all, the way his locks curled lightly against his collar as though even his very hair wished to touch the world kindly. That I had seen Carwyn every day for weeks made it hurt more, like seeing a house that reminded me of home and left me feeling more homesick and far away from any comfort.
I put my hand to my face to muffle the sobs, but I let the messy choking sounds come. I let my tears fall until my face felt like a stiff mask, twisted with grief. The patina of dried tears made me feel as if I could not change expression or my face would crack. My eyes were so puffy, I could barely see. And I found a strange glory in my stupid, useless, wildly unrestrained misery. I did not have to be restrained anymore. I cried and cried, cried for my mother, for the loss of her and how I had denied it, for all my love and all my guilt, for my father and the child I used to be, and for Ethan. I even cried for my aunt and for Jim and Charles and Mark Stryker. I cried for everyone I had not been able to save, and cried as I had never allowed myself to cry.
Ethan had only ever wanted to love me. He had never asked me to be strong all the time.
I stared up at the pale glimmer that might be his face, high up in the tower window. I concentrated on directing my thoughts to him, on lifting my whole soul up to him, as if I could pluck it like a bird from a cage and send it flying to his hands.
A group of people had gathered, I realized. Others were still walking by, sliding glances of mingled discomfort and fascination at me, as if I were a traffic accident. But the group watching me was quiet. I had broken down in an ugly mess, no artifice and no dignity left, and people I did not know were still watching me with sympathy. Not everyone had turned away. Not every heart had to be won by trickery.
“Are you all right?” a stranger asked me.