Page 76 of The Lies We Play

“Don’t move,” I say. “Don’t hang up.”

My voice sounds calm.

That is the miracle and the crime of it.

Inside, something is tearing through bone.

“Stay on the line, Hal.”

Another breath.

A sound that might be my name if it had survived the distance from his chest to his mouth.

I close my eyes.

Halston Wolfe Saint Claire is calling me.

After all this time.

He’s alive. Though I knew that. Of course, I knew that. The world said he survived. Articles said he returned to foundation leadership. Society pages said he attended galas. His family released photographs, carefully curated and infuriatingly sterile. I saw the man in a suit. I saw the press statements. I saw the perfect resurrection.

But this?

This is not the man in the photographs.

This is Hal.

My Hal.

The man whose silence had grammar. The man who could ask a question with one second of stillness. The man who used to stand beside Livia with his hand near the small of her back and watch me like he knew exactly how badly I wanted the same touch. The man who kissed me like he was correcting every law that failed to include us.

My throat closes.

I don't let him hear it.

“Breathe,” I say. “Just breathe, babe.”

A laugh almost comes out of me, vicious and broken.

As if I have any right to tell him that.

For a long time, neither of us speaks.

The line carries the small sounds of whatever room he is in. Rain against glass. City noise far below. A heater clicking. Halston breathing like every inhale has to pass through ten years of locked doors.

I press the phone harder to my ear.

“Are you alone?”

Nothing.

Then, very faintly, “Yes.”

His voice.

I bend forward over the counter.

The apartment tilts, or I do.