The Lie by Karina Halle
“Did the man have a son?”
I nod. “Yes,” I whisper. “A wonderful, beautiful son.”
“Where is his son now?”
I take in a deep, shaking breath and look back at the cloud of Natasha which is becoming more blurred by the moment. “His son was one of the things he lost. He never found him again.”
“Do you think they’ll ever find each other?”
I nod, a tear streaming down my cheek and onto the grass. “Maybe just in dreams.”
“Why are you crying?” he asks me.
I turn my head and take in his beautiful face. “Because I love you. And I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
He grins at me, showing off a missing tooth. “You know I’m okay. I’m here with you. I’m never not with you.”
I reach across to grab his hand, and I do for an instant. So small and fragile and warm in my grasp. It feels like heaven.
Then, just like the clouds, he begins to fade, turning into wisps of white, until I’m not holding anything but air. My body begins to pull away from the scene, the false reality rushing past me until it’s all gone.
I wake up slowly. When I have dreams like this, I hang on to them as much as I can. I don’t groan and moan my way into the day. I don’t rush. I grab hold of every feeling and every memory before it’s lost forever. Dreams are the only way I see Hamish now, and I’d be a fool to waste them.
Today is different though. I can feel it in my bones, this dark matter that seems to leach out of my body and onto the walls.
It’s September 26th.
The anniversary of Hamish and Miranda’s death.
I should go back to Edinburgh, visit the cemetery like I’ve been doing every year—sometimes by myself, sometimes with my parents. But this is the first year I’ve had my job back, the first year I’ve tried to really pull myself together.
I take out my phone and check the train schedules, wondering if I have enough time to make it up to Edinburgh this weekend. I don’t really and decide I need to do something here in London to honor them. I don’t know what, but even just getting Miranda’s favorite flowers and Hamish’s favorite stickers and scattering them in the Thames feels like enough.
But it’s never enough. That’s the thing. There’s not a single ritual I could do to ever make it be enough because nothing will ever convey how sorry I am, and nothing will ever bring them back into my life. My attempts to honor them only serve to bring me peace and nothing more.
Peace, even now, in the throes of love, is still so fleeting.
Later that morning as I’m about to rush off to school, I get a text from Natasha asking me if we should go to dinner together. Aside from a few nights here and there, we’ve been spending all our free time together, so plans seems like a given. A wonderful, easy given.
But not tonight.
I text her back. I’m not good for company. Hamish and Miranda died this day.
There is a long pause from her and then those bubbles appear as she tries to type something over and over again. Finally she says: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.
I know you didn’t. It’s okay. I’ll talk to you later.
I don’t mean to be standoffish about it, but it’s got to be strange for us to be together at a time like this. Besides, I need to be alone. I have to be. It wouldn’t be right otherwise.
Though, for the rest of the day, nothing seems right. I grieve for Hamish, and I feel guilt over Miranda every single day, so this day shouldn’t feel any different than normal. But it is and it does. I can barely make it through class, and I don’t spend any time on tutorials or my book. I can’t. I leave and head home, surprising Winter with a long walk around Regent’s University, drowning in my sorrows to the point that even Winter is subdued, his head low, eyes glancing at me warily.
When I get back, Winter heads straight to the couch and stares up at me with big blue eyes. I pour myself a pinch of Scotch and stare out the window at Baker Street, trying to get lost in the imagined lives of the people walking to and fro. But I can’t. I can’t escape the pain nor the life that I chose.
I head out the door, even as the night is growing dark and cold, the sharp chill of fall. I pick up peonies, Miranda’s favorite flowers, then head to a toy store. I’m immediately lost within the racks, trying to find something he would have liked. He liked dinosaurs. Bugs. Monsters. Science. I pick up a pack of dinosaur stickers with the T-Rex and Stegosaurus he would have loved, and then make my way down to the Thames.
I don’t bother taking the tube. I want to take my time, as if it’s a ritual, going over every beautiful thing that I remember. Sometimes four years seems like eons ago. Sometimes it’s just like this morning. How could I recall so much and so little at the same time? How can the dead be so close and so far away?
And yet as I walk, with so much pressure on my heart and that heavy weight of time, I think about Natasha. I think about how she should be here with me. I love her. With everything I have. And despite what we were to each other, what our actions may have caused, I want to be with her for as long as I can.
I can’t do this alone. I won’t do this alone. Not anymore. If she’s going to share my life, she has to share every part of it, including the ugly truths that we try so, so hard not to look at. We’re both so afraid to bring up our weaknesses with each other, to talk about what we did, even though we never meant for anything like that to happen. We both tiptoe over the very things that burned us both to the ground, the very things that bond us together. It can’t be ignored anymore.
There is no true peace in ignorance.
I take out my mobile and call her.
“Hi,” she says right away, though her voice is a bit cagey. I hear shuffling and I know she’s trying to be discreet about it around Melissa. That’s one thing we do have to tiptoe around. She seems to think Melissa has it out for me, and I couldn’t agree with her more.
“Listen,” I tell her. “Can you meet me at the Embankment Station?”
“Now?”
“Please.”
“Of course. I’ll come right away.”
I hang up and slow my steps, my breath coming easier to me now.
By the time I work my way across west London to the Embankment Station, I see Natasha popping out onto the street. I quickly wave at her, keeping my flowers low.
She strides over to me, and thankfully her face doesn’t show any sign of expectation that the flowers are for her.
I kiss her softly and show her the flowers and the stickers. “The flowers are for Miranda,” I tell her, hoping it’s not too weird. “Peonies were something she always went nuts for. The stickers are for Hamish. The T-Rex and Stegosaurus were his favorite. He always made them battle. I always wondered what would happen when he got old enough to realize both dinosaurs were millions of years apart and never existed together.”
She gives me a sweet smile, but I can tell she’s been crying. Her eyes are deep, glittering with fatigue. “I’m sure he would have been just as upset over Santa Claus not being real.”
“You’re probably right.”
I take her hand and we walk down to the riverfront, heading under the Golden Jubilee Bridges. The river is dark as sin at night, despite all the shimmering lights. It looks fathomless, the kind of place that holds monsters in its heart.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” Natasha whispers to me as we stroll past a few joggers out for their night run, past the barges and boats that hold drunken laughter from lives that don’t have to carry this burden. Light waves lap at the river wall, the air smelling briny and wet, not unlike a damp basement.
“I didn’t expect I’d call,” I admit. “But I realized something, I guess. That no matter how hard this is for me, I don’t want to do it alone. I don’t have to. I have you.”
“Brigs,” she says softly.
“I know,” I tell her. “I know it doesn’t seem right, but it is right. I want a life with you, Natasha. And both of us have suffered so much for what we’ve
done. Neither of us wanted this. But it is what it is. And we don’t have much hope in working through it unless we work together. My pain is your pain. Your pain is my pain. We understand each other, we understand this, unlike anyone else.”
She rubs her lips together, nodding. “Are you sure you want me here, though? It’s just so private.”
“It is private,” I tell her. “But darling, you are my private life. I want you in on everything, just as I want to be in on everything in your life. This is deeply personal, and I need to share it with you. It’s the only way out. The only way through.”
We walk for a bit until we come to the golden winged statue of the Royal Air Force Memorial where it overlooks the river like a soldier on guard. Steps lead down to the water’s edge, and across the way, the ever roving wheel of the London Eye looks down on us.
It’s private here. It seems as good of a place as any. Hamish would have been enthralled by the statue, and Miranda would have loved the view of London.
Natasha and I stand beside each other, elbows leaning on the railing. We don’t talk at first. There’s too much to say and not enough words to express them in. I run over in my head everything I loved about them, and when it comes to Hamish, the emotions run away from me, larger than life. Tears immediately poke at my eyes, burning them, and my chest becomes raw and heavy. There’s no way I’m getting out of this without becoming a complete mess.
But Natasha reaches out and holds my pinky finger, just enough contact to let me know that she’s there for me, and somehow it gives me the courage to find my first words.
“We’re here tonight,” I say to the black river, my voice cracking already. “To give our respects to Miranda Harding and Hamish Harding McGregor. They were taken from this world unexpectedly and unfairly, far too soon, on this day, four years ago.” I take in a deep breath, closing my eyes. The air is salty, oily, smelling faintly of sewage. “I don’t think this day will get any easier. I don’t think any day will, as they live in more than just my memory. They live in my dreams and in my heart. They live in my soul, and that’s a place I will gladly keep them. I just wish…I want them to know how sorry I am for everything I ever did to hurt them. I want them to know that I truly did love them, in one way or another. Though Miranda and I had our differences, she was still the mother of my child and I respected that. I would give anything to reach back in time and prevent it all from happening. I wouldn’t have let her near the Scotch. I wouldn’t have let her near Hamish. I would have had the foresight to see this unfolding and hidden her car keys. I would have done anything.”
I’m very aware that I’ve never opened up to Natasha about what went on that night, and I can tell from the way the tears are leaking from her eyes, by the way her hand squeezes my finger, that it’s hitting her hard.
I continue, my throat thick. “There are so many things I could have done to prevent their deaths and not a second goes by that I don’t regret it. That I don’t wish upon wish that I could turn back the clock and make things right. But one thing I’ve slowly, very slowly, learned not to regret is why I talked to Miranda in the first place.” I glance over at Natasha who is staring at me with wide, glossy eyes. “I don’t regret that. I don’t take that back. Because it was the truth and the truth needed to be said. Maybe some things are better left in the dark, but that’s never something I believed in. Once I realized what was to never be, I couldn’t live the lie. The truth hurts. In this case it killed. But I refuse to be shackled to that guilt anymore. I refuse to live my life in shame because I fell in love with someone else and because I chose to do the right thing, even if it was barely right above a sea of wrongs. I’ve needed to make peace with this, and I think Hamish, and deep down, Miranda, would agree. Their loss has robbed me of life and soul and irrevocably changed so many lives. But I also know they would both want me to move on, to keep going, to be happy.”
I sigh and lift the bouquet of flowers, breaking off a few petals. “I did the wrong thing and tried to do the right thing. But this is no longer about my own guilt or shame or suffering. This is just about two very special humans who were taken far too soon, whom I miss every single day, whom I wish I could see just once more. This is about the lives of Miranda and Hamish, and the people they loved and those who loved them.”
I sprinkle the light petals on the dark water. They look like stars bobbing around in a moving sky. I take out the dinosaur stickers and do the same. “I love you, little guy. And I miss you. Like you wouldn’t bloody believe. And I know, I know you’re with me sometimes. Or perhaps, like you say in my dreams, all the time. I’m so sorry I never got to know the man you would become. I’m sorry the world was robbed of knowing you, too. But something tells me—maybe it’s just foolish hope—that I’ll still know. No matter the years that pass, I’ll still know you. In here.” I press my fist against my heart and try to breathe. It’s so fucking hard. “I love you.”
Then I collapse to the ground, my legs having had enough.
Natasha goes with me, trying to hold me up, but I can’t. I just end up holding on to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, like I can’t hold on hard enough. I’m crying, sobbing into her shoulder, feeling so much love and so much pain choke me at once. It’s a maddening descent into darkness and I feel myself slipping.
But she is light. She gives me light. She holds on and tells me that I’m a good man and that I deserve to be forgiven, deserve to let go. She tells me beautiful things, and I feel her belief, I feel her strength even though I know the darkness has her too. I wonder if it will always be like this, the mutual drowning, the downward spiral of the two of us, holding hands as we go.
And I wonder if we will always lift each other out of it.
But then, as the night ticks on and we lie by the river, huddled together in each other’s arms, a desperate and wild embrace, I know I don’t have to wonder.
As long as she is with me. As long as I am with her, we will always bring each other out of it.
We are forever surrounded by ashes.
But we are fire.
And fire rises.
Somehow, when all the tears have exhausted themselves and my chest feels numb and my face is leaden with pressure, the two of us get to our feet. The world swirls around us—the dark, lapping waves, the traffic from the bridges, the glittering lights of the Eye, pubs and boats and life going on—and I feel like we were just caught in a passing storm. Horrible and ravaging and merciless at its peak, but then it soon weakens and moves on. It leaves everything behind it both raw and clean.
Natasha puts her arms around my waist and her head to my chest. I cup the back of her neck, thanking God for her, thanking him for letting the storm pass and the light rise. Maybe it won’t always be like this, but for tonight, when I really needed it, it is.
I think I finally know what it feels like to have your pieces put back together. It’s a shoddy, messy job, but I’m still standing.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to me. “For everything.”
“I’m sorry too,” I tell her. “But I’m not sorry for you.”
She looks up at me and I wipe a tear away from her cheek before kissing her softly on the lips. “Come home with me,” I whisper to her.
She nods and we head back through the city, leaving the flowers and the stickers and the tears behind on the Thames.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Brigs
“Professor McGregor, you’re not looking so hot.”
I don’t even look up from my notes. I quickly shove them in my briefcase while the class files out of the room, wishing Melissa would go along with them.
“Well, that’s not true,” Melissa adds quietly, coming closer until she’s practically on the desk. Out of my peripheral I can see her red nails drumming along the surface. “You’re always pretty hot. And you know it. Why else do you keep wearing these dress shirts, the way they hug your biceps.” I can practically feel her leering eyes burn into me. “But you do look tired. Something wr
ong?”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I know I look like shit. This weekend drained the hell out of me. Though it was cathartic to say my goodbyes with Natasha, and my soul feels infinitely freer, it didn’t mean that the emotions weren’t still running high. The bonds of shame and guilt may finally be slipping from me, but grief doesn’t ever let go. It may slacken, it may lie still at times, but it’s always tied to you for the rest of your life. I’ve come to terms with that now too, that I’ll never fill the void left behind, but just because you accept something doesn’t mean it gets easier.
That said, I haven’t yet accepted the fact that Melissa is bugging the hell out of me with her dicey motives every time she’s around. The few times I’ve brought her up with Natasha, she’s been supportive of her friend, even though she seems to have her own reservations. Maybe because she’s really the only friend I’ve seen Natasha have, maybe because Melissa—at least in her eyes—is just overly protective.
But there’s something more to her. I can tell. And it frightens me to think that it might go undetected until it’s too late.
You’re being paranoid, I tell myself. Again.
But when I finally look up to give her the Why are you still here? look, I catch the blatant expression of lust in her eyes. Lust and something ill-natured. I imagine it’s the look many girls get when they catch the eye of a man whose intentions are nothing but bad.
“Is there something you wanted to speak to me about?” I ask her, ignoring what she said previously and trying to sound as noncommittal as possible.
“I just wondered what your views were on dating students,” she says with false innocence, her giant forehead wrinkling insincerely.
My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “Excuse me?” I nervously look around the classroom to see if anyone heard, but we’re alone now, which is both good and bad.
“Oh, relax,” she says with a shrug. “It’s just a question. You know I don’t bite. Unless I’m told to. I’m very good at taking certain kinds of orders.”
I frown at her, shaking my head, trying to compose myself. “You know what the rules are about that, I’m sure. How is that relevant to anything in today’s class, or any class?”
I nod. “Yes,” I whisper. “A wonderful, beautiful son.”
“Where is his son now?”
I take in a deep, shaking breath and look back at the cloud of Natasha which is becoming more blurred by the moment. “His son was one of the things he lost. He never found him again.”
“Do you think they’ll ever find each other?”
I nod, a tear streaming down my cheek and onto the grass. “Maybe just in dreams.”
“Why are you crying?” he asks me.
I turn my head and take in his beautiful face. “Because I love you. And I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
He grins at me, showing off a missing tooth. “You know I’m okay. I’m here with you. I’m never not with you.”
I reach across to grab his hand, and I do for an instant. So small and fragile and warm in my grasp. It feels like heaven.
Then, just like the clouds, he begins to fade, turning into wisps of white, until I’m not holding anything but air. My body begins to pull away from the scene, the false reality rushing past me until it’s all gone.
I wake up slowly. When I have dreams like this, I hang on to them as much as I can. I don’t groan and moan my way into the day. I don’t rush. I grab hold of every feeling and every memory before it’s lost forever. Dreams are the only way I see Hamish now, and I’d be a fool to waste them.
Today is different though. I can feel it in my bones, this dark matter that seems to leach out of my body and onto the walls.
It’s September 26th.
The anniversary of Hamish and Miranda’s death.
I should go back to Edinburgh, visit the cemetery like I’ve been doing every year—sometimes by myself, sometimes with my parents. But this is the first year I’ve had my job back, the first year I’ve tried to really pull myself together.
I take out my phone and check the train schedules, wondering if I have enough time to make it up to Edinburgh this weekend. I don’t really and decide I need to do something here in London to honor them. I don’t know what, but even just getting Miranda’s favorite flowers and Hamish’s favorite stickers and scattering them in the Thames feels like enough.
But it’s never enough. That’s the thing. There’s not a single ritual I could do to ever make it be enough because nothing will ever convey how sorry I am, and nothing will ever bring them back into my life. My attempts to honor them only serve to bring me peace and nothing more.
Peace, even now, in the throes of love, is still so fleeting.
Later that morning as I’m about to rush off to school, I get a text from Natasha asking me if we should go to dinner together. Aside from a few nights here and there, we’ve been spending all our free time together, so plans seems like a given. A wonderful, easy given.
But not tonight.
I text her back. I’m not good for company. Hamish and Miranda died this day.
There is a long pause from her and then those bubbles appear as she tries to type something over and over again. Finally she says: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.
I know you didn’t. It’s okay. I’ll talk to you later.
I don’t mean to be standoffish about it, but it’s got to be strange for us to be together at a time like this. Besides, I need to be alone. I have to be. It wouldn’t be right otherwise.
Though, for the rest of the day, nothing seems right. I grieve for Hamish, and I feel guilt over Miranda every single day, so this day shouldn’t feel any different than normal. But it is and it does. I can barely make it through class, and I don’t spend any time on tutorials or my book. I can’t. I leave and head home, surprising Winter with a long walk around Regent’s University, drowning in my sorrows to the point that even Winter is subdued, his head low, eyes glancing at me warily.
When I get back, Winter heads straight to the couch and stares up at me with big blue eyes. I pour myself a pinch of Scotch and stare out the window at Baker Street, trying to get lost in the imagined lives of the people walking to and fro. But I can’t. I can’t escape the pain nor the life that I chose.
I head out the door, even as the night is growing dark and cold, the sharp chill of fall. I pick up peonies, Miranda’s favorite flowers, then head to a toy store. I’m immediately lost within the racks, trying to find something he would have liked. He liked dinosaurs. Bugs. Monsters. Science. I pick up a pack of dinosaur stickers with the T-Rex and Stegosaurus he would have loved, and then make my way down to the Thames.
I don’t bother taking the tube. I want to take my time, as if it’s a ritual, going over every beautiful thing that I remember. Sometimes four years seems like eons ago. Sometimes it’s just like this morning. How could I recall so much and so little at the same time? How can the dead be so close and so far away?
And yet as I walk, with so much pressure on my heart and that heavy weight of time, I think about Natasha. I think about how she should be here with me. I love her. With everything I have. And despite what we were to each other, what our actions may have caused, I want to be with her for as long as I can.
I can’t do this alone. I won’t do this alone. Not anymore. If she’s going to share my life, she has to share every part of it, including the ugly truths that we try so, so hard not to look at. We’re both so afraid to bring up our weaknesses with each other, to talk about what we did, even though we never meant for anything like that to happen. We both tiptoe over the very things that burned us both to the ground, the very things that bond us together. It can’t be ignored anymore.
There is no true peace in ignorance.
I take out my mobile and call her.
“Hi,” she says right away, though her voice is a bit cagey. I hear shuffling and I know she’s trying to be discreet about it around Melissa. That’s one thing we do have to tiptoe around. She seems to think Melissa has it out for me, and I couldn’t agree with her more.
“Listen,” I tell her. “Can you meet me at the Embankment Station?”
“Now?”
“Please.”
“Of course. I’ll come right away.”
I hang up and slow my steps, my breath coming easier to me now.
By the time I work my way across west London to the Embankment Station, I see Natasha popping out onto the street. I quickly wave at her, keeping my flowers low.
She strides over to me, and thankfully her face doesn’t show any sign of expectation that the flowers are for her.
I kiss her softly and show her the flowers and the stickers. “The flowers are for Miranda,” I tell her, hoping it’s not too weird. “Peonies were something she always went nuts for. The stickers are for Hamish. The T-Rex and Stegosaurus were his favorite. He always made them battle. I always wondered what would happen when he got old enough to realize both dinosaurs were millions of years apart and never existed together.”
She gives me a sweet smile, but I can tell she’s been crying. Her eyes are deep, glittering with fatigue. “I’m sure he would have been just as upset over Santa Claus not being real.”
“You’re probably right.”
I take her hand and we walk down to the riverfront, heading under the Golden Jubilee Bridges. The river is dark as sin at night, despite all the shimmering lights. It looks fathomless, the kind of place that holds monsters in its heart.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” Natasha whispers to me as we stroll past a few joggers out for their night run, past the barges and boats that hold drunken laughter from lives that don’t have to carry this burden. Light waves lap at the river wall, the air smelling briny and wet, not unlike a damp basement.
“I didn’t expect I’d call,” I admit. “But I realized something, I guess. That no matter how hard this is for me, I don’t want to do it alone. I don’t have to. I have you.”
“Brigs,” she says softly.
“I know,” I tell her. “I know it doesn’t seem right, but it is right. I want a life with you, Natasha. And both of us have suffered so much for what we’ve
She rubs her lips together, nodding. “Are you sure you want me here, though? It’s just so private.”
“It is private,” I tell her. “But darling, you are my private life. I want you in on everything, just as I want to be in on everything in your life. This is deeply personal, and I need to share it with you. It’s the only way out. The only way through.”
We walk for a bit until we come to the golden winged statue of the Royal Air Force Memorial where it overlooks the river like a soldier on guard. Steps lead down to the water’s edge, and across the way, the ever roving wheel of the London Eye looks down on us.
It’s private here. It seems as good of a place as any. Hamish would have been enthralled by the statue, and Miranda would have loved the view of London.
Natasha and I stand beside each other, elbows leaning on the railing. We don’t talk at first. There’s too much to say and not enough words to express them in. I run over in my head everything I loved about them, and when it comes to Hamish, the emotions run away from me, larger than life. Tears immediately poke at my eyes, burning them, and my chest becomes raw and heavy. There’s no way I’m getting out of this without becoming a complete mess.
But Natasha reaches out and holds my pinky finger, just enough contact to let me know that she’s there for me, and somehow it gives me the courage to find my first words.
“We’re here tonight,” I say to the black river, my voice cracking already. “To give our respects to Miranda Harding and Hamish Harding McGregor. They were taken from this world unexpectedly and unfairly, far too soon, on this day, four years ago.” I take in a deep breath, closing my eyes. The air is salty, oily, smelling faintly of sewage. “I don’t think this day will get any easier. I don’t think any day will, as they live in more than just my memory. They live in my dreams and in my heart. They live in my soul, and that’s a place I will gladly keep them. I just wish…I want them to know how sorry I am for everything I ever did to hurt them. I want them to know that I truly did love them, in one way or another. Though Miranda and I had our differences, she was still the mother of my child and I respected that. I would give anything to reach back in time and prevent it all from happening. I wouldn’t have let her near the Scotch. I wouldn’t have let her near Hamish. I would have had the foresight to see this unfolding and hidden her car keys. I would have done anything.”
I’m very aware that I’ve never opened up to Natasha about what went on that night, and I can tell from the way the tears are leaking from her eyes, by the way her hand squeezes my finger, that it’s hitting her hard.
I continue, my throat thick. “There are so many things I could have done to prevent their deaths and not a second goes by that I don’t regret it. That I don’t wish upon wish that I could turn back the clock and make things right. But one thing I’ve slowly, very slowly, learned not to regret is why I talked to Miranda in the first place.” I glance over at Natasha who is staring at me with wide, glossy eyes. “I don’t regret that. I don’t take that back. Because it was the truth and the truth needed to be said. Maybe some things are better left in the dark, but that’s never something I believed in. Once I realized what was to never be, I couldn’t live the lie. The truth hurts. In this case it killed. But I refuse to be shackled to that guilt anymore. I refuse to live my life in shame because I fell in love with someone else and because I chose to do the right thing, even if it was barely right above a sea of wrongs. I’ve needed to make peace with this, and I think Hamish, and deep down, Miranda, would agree. Their loss has robbed me of life and soul and irrevocably changed so many lives. But I also know they would both want me to move on, to keep going, to be happy.”
I sigh and lift the bouquet of flowers, breaking off a few petals. “I did the wrong thing and tried to do the right thing. But this is no longer about my own guilt or shame or suffering. This is just about two very special humans who were taken far too soon, whom I miss every single day, whom I wish I could see just once more. This is about the lives of Miranda and Hamish, and the people they loved and those who loved them.”
I sprinkle the light petals on the dark water. They look like stars bobbing around in a moving sky. I take out the dinosaur stickers and do the same. “I love you, little guy. And I miss you. Like you wouldn’t bloody believe. And I know, I know you’re with me sometimes. Or perhaps, like you say in my dreams, all the time. I’m so sorry I never got to know the man you would become. I’m sorry the world was robbed of knowing you, too. But something tells me—maybe it’s just foolish hope—that I’ll still know. No matter the years that pass, I’ll still know you. In here.” I press my fist against my heart and try to breathe. It’s so fucking hard. “I love you.”
Then I collapse to the ground, my legs having had enough.
Natasha goes with me, trying to hold me up, but I can’t. I just end up holding on to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, like I can’t hold on hard enough. I’m crying, sobbing into her shoulder, feeling so much love and so much pain choke me at once. It’s a maddening descent into darkness and I feel myself slipping.
But she is light. She gives me light. She holds on and tells me that I’m a good man and that I deserve to be forgiven, deserve to let go. She tells me beautiful things, and I feel her belief, I feel her strength even though I know the darkness has her too. I wonder if it will always be like this, the mutual drowning, the downward spiral of the two of us, holding hands as we go.
And I wonder if we will always lift each other out of it.
But then, as the night ticks on and we lie by the river, huddled together in each other’s arms, a desperate and wild embrace, I know I don’t have to wonder.
As long as she is with me. As long as I am with her, we will always bring each other out of it.
We are forever surrounded by ashes.
But we are fire.
And fire rises.
Somehow, when all the tears have exhausted themselves and my chest feels numb and my face is leaden with pressure, the two of us get to our feet. The world swirls around us—the dark, lapping waves, the traffic from the bridges, the glittering lights of the Eye, pubs and boats and life going on—and I feel like we were just caught in a passing storm. Horrible and ravaging and merciless at its peak, but then it soon weakens and moves on. It leaves everything behind it both raw and clean.
Natasha puts her arms around my waist and her head to my chest. I cup the back of her neck, thanking God for her, thanking him for letting the storm pass and the light rise. Maybe it won’t always be like this, but for tonight, when I really needed it, it is.
I think I finally know what it feels like to have your pieces put back together. It’s a shoddy, messy job, but I’m still standing.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to me. “For everything.”
“I’m sorry too,” I tell her. “But I’m not sorry for you.”
She looks up at me and I wipe a tear away from her cheek before kissing her softly on the lips. “Come home with me,” I whisper to her.
She nods and we head back through the city, leaving the flowers and the stickers and the tears behind on the Thames.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Brigs
“Professor McGregor, you’re not looking so hot.”
I don’t even look up from my notes. I quickly shove them in my briefcase while the class files out of the room, wishing Melissa would go along with them.
“Well, that’s not true,” Melissa adds quietly, coming closer until she’s practically on the desk. Out of my peripheral I can see her red nails drumming along the surface. “You’re always pretty hot. And you know it. Why else do you keep wearing these dress shirts, the way they hug your biceps.” I can practically feel her leering eyes burn into me. “But you do look tired. Something wr
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I know I look like shit. This weekend drained the hell out of me. Though it was cathartic to say my goodbyes with Natasha, and my soul feels infinitely freer, it didn’t mean that the emotions weren’t still running high. The bonds of shame and guilt may finally be slipping from me, but grief doesn’t ever let go. It may slacken, it may lie still at times, but it’s always tied to you for the rest of your life. I’ve come to terms with that now too, that I’ll never fill the void left behind, but just because you accept something doesn’t mean it gets easier.
That said, I haven’t yet accepted the fact that Melissa is bugging the hell out of me with her dicey motives every time she’s around. The few times I’ve brought her up with Natasha, she’s been supportive of her friend, even though she seems to have her own reservations. Maybe because she’s really the only friend I’ve seen Natasha have, maybe because Melissa—at least in her eyes—is just overly protective.
But there’s something more to her. I can tell. And it frightens me to think that it might go undetected until it’s too late.
You’re being paranoid, I tell myself. Again.
But when I finally look up to give her the Why are you still here? look, I catch the blatant expression of lust in her eyes. Lust and something ill-natured. I imagine it’s the look many girls get when they catch the eye of a man whose intentions are nothing but bad.
“Is there something you wanted to speak to me about?” I ask her, ignoring what she said previously and trying to sound as noncommittal as possible.
“I just wondered what your views were on dating students,” she says with false innocence, her giant forehead wrinkling insincerely.
My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “Excuse me?” I nervously look around the classroom to see if anyone heard, but we’re alone now, which is both good and bad.
“Oh, relax,” she says with a shrug. “It’s just a question. You know I don’t bite. Unless I’m told to. I’m very good at taking certain kinds of orders.”
I frown at her, shaking my head, trying to compose myself. “You know what the rules are about that, I’m sure. How is that relevant to anything in today’s class, or any class?”