Page 64 of Outcast’s Return

He’ll understand.

23

FABIEN

I find her sitting on a bench in a quiet corner of Central Park, alone.

I walk toward her slowly as if I’m approaching a wounded lioness still with the ability to lash out. She doesn’t look up even as I near her. Jolie is hunched forward, crying. Tears run down her pretty face.

Something’s happened. Something at work.

Her message explained nothing. Just a simple plea for me to come to her.

And I have. I dropped everything. I don’t know why I did so, but I could tell something was wrong, and that she needed me, and so I instinctively ran to her.

I sit down on the bench next to her. She doesn’t glance my way, but she must know who I am, because she leans her head against my shoulder.

And she cries. It’s not dramatic, more like a proud woman who’s quietly devastated. Little sobs that keep coming and coming.

And I let her cry until there’s nothing left.

* * *

“Let’s go back to the penthouse,” I finally whisper to her. “It’s just across the street.”

We’ve been sitting here on this bench for nearly an hour without a word spoken.

I’m the one person in the entire universe she decided to call.

“Okay,” she replies, her voice hoarse. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t want to comfort her last night. She reveled in how irritated I was when she went to the nightclub. She spat venom at me in the car back home. She made me admit I hate her.

I went to bed so, so angry with her.

But then she jolted awake, screaming into the dark, and something inside me immediately shifted; an instinct to comfort her and make sure she was safe. That same pull grips me now as I guide her back to the penthouse, my hand firm on her arm. It doesn’t make sense.

It’s easy to stay mad at a ghost, but it’s entirely different staying mad at someone flesh and blood.

A few tears and I’m immediately back to being that boy in the nighttime kitchen? Have I been telling myself a lie all this time?

We walk slowly, with one small step at a time, and we don’t say another word until I’ve pressed my finger against the security scanner to unlock the penthouse’s front door.

“Tell me, Jolie,” I say. “What happened? What did this to you? Who did this to you?”

Jolie makes her way to the couch. She sits and then slumps back.

This is not the brave, headstrong, proudly independent woman I know.

“I... can’t...”

I sit down next to her.

“You can tell me anything, Jolie.”

She sighs, and a flicker of innocence crosses her face.

“Yeah? You’re not going to get mad?”