I dig inside my purse for the purple-and-turquoise box. When I find it, I hold it one last time, my fingers clutching it tightly.
“Here,” I say, giving it to him with both hands. It has a dried Aeternum taped on top. The rest of the roses are in the cooler in the chemistry building undergoing geraniol extraction.
He takes the box with a boyish grin.
“I’m not sure when was the last time I got a present,” he says. “Actually, I do know. January eighth, at 1:34 p.m. A bottle of Balvenie from Benson.”
I laugh, the sound quivering with emotion. “Belated Christmas present?”
“Yes. Even though I’ve told him twenty-four times not to get me anything.”
He tucks the Aeternum in the breast pocket of his shirt, and starts unwrapping the paper. But when he takes out the double frame, the box drops from his hand and his mouth pops open.
I follow his gaze even though I know what he is seeing. On one side is a photo of his home and on the other, my one-way ticket to America the day he bought his house. I would have never parted with this ticket but ever since I met him, it seems I came here for him alone.
He looks at me with a strong emotion on his face, the one without name that I saw at his Alone Place.
“Is this the real ticket?” he asks, his voice low.
I nod, swallowing so that tears don’t rise to my eyes.
He looks at it again even though I know he has memorized it. His Adam’s apple rolls once in his lovely throat. “Why are you giving it to me?”
In a way, giving Aiden anything that belongs in a frame is silly. But this is not a picture—it’s a connection.
“Because this whole journey was worth it just to meet you. Even if it is only now.”
He leans in and kisses my temple. “Thank you.” His voice is new, humbled.
I smile. “You’re welcome. And now, you have a frame!”
He chuckles. “So I do. I think I’ll put it on my desk in the library. It will shock the hell out of Cora and Benson.”
I almost float like a helium balloon. I love you, I love you, I love you. I snap a picture of the moment lest the words break through my locked teeth.
He rests the frame on his knee and strokes my cheek. “You didn’t get a single present for yourself, Elisa.”
I shrug. “They didn’t have what I wanted.”
The V breaks between his eyebrows and his jaw flexes, probably plotting the demise of all Portland retailers who failed me in such a manner. “What did you want?”
I climb on his lap, wrapping my arms around him.
“Sleep with me tonight,” I say, trying not to let the sharp ache of his absence enter my voice. Every night since the hilltop, Aiden waits for me to pass out—usually a matter of seconds after his sexcapades—and then goes to sleep in the guest room down the hall.
He pries my hands from his neck immediately. “No, Elisa. We discussed this.” His voice is unyielding.
“Please?” My neuropsychology professor was wrong when he told us we lack awareness in deep sleep. I miss Aiden from the second I close my eyes to the moment I open them. I know his absence in the cold bed that doesn’t warm up no matter how many blankets he throws on me, in the goose bumps that don’t go away despite Margolis’s finest silk, in the dreams that are always a shade of turquoise.
His jaw flexes. “It’s not—worth—the risk.”
“But I won’t touch you at all, I promise.”
“Please, stop!”
He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he opens them again, he cups my face gently.
“Elisa, baby, don’t you think I want to sleep next to you? Do you think I don’t see how you clutch my pillow when you sleep? I spend hours watching you at night.”
“You do?”
He smiles. “Of course, I do, you silly, beautiful, reckless woman.”
I smile, too, fighting some rather ludicrous tears. I love you. “Maybe I need an exact replica of you, like an Aiden-bear?”
“That sounds horrific.” He pretends to shudder but kisses me, his lips soft, his tongue angry. I fist my hands in his hair, not caring at all that we are in a public street with Benson right outside the window. I’d probably lose all sense of British modesty and do a lot more but he pulls away with a chuckle.
“If you keep this up, we’ll end up arrested and that would endanger your green card.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot,” I say, aware of my pout. “I can’t wait to be free of these stupid public decency restrictions.”
He laughs his waterfall laughter. “Tonight,” he promises, pinching my chin.
Tonight is too far away. I start kissing him again but Benson decides that this is the moment to knock on our window. I look out and see Javier skipping down the museum stairs.
The change in Aiden is instant. The tension snaps back around his shoulders, and I see that flicker of anger in his eyes as his memory retrieves his first reaction to Javier. But he leashes it back, the plates shifting until they find their natural, guarded spot.