Page 89 of Outcast’s Return

He’s quiet again. Too quiet.

And he still hasn’t taken my hand.

“Do you still think of me as that? An orphan?”

I stop my crying. I look him dead in the eyes.

“I never did,” I say. “Never. You meant everything to me.”

Fabien breaks, then. A falter in his expression. A stumble in his breathing. There’s a lost look in his eyes. My truth has finally unraveled him and everything he thought about me.

“You never did? Jolie...”

His voice is tender now. A boy’s voice. A boy who hasn’t read a devastating email yet.

I can’t bear it. I’m so ashamed. I’ve admitted everything.

My hand falls to my side.

Without saying another word, I turn away from Fabien and walk out into the rain. I can’t keep talking. I can’t stand there and let him look at me like that.

I can’t be here. Not with Fabien.

I don’t look back as I walk down the dark street.

The rain pelts me like a sky full of arrows, but I don’t care.

I keep walking.

And walking.

And walking.

But then, there’s a hand on my right wrist. I turn back.

Fabien.

And before I can even say a single syllable, there are already words on his lips.

34

FABIEN

I’ve been wrong about everything.

Everything.

I directed all my hate at her. At a person I had created in my imagination. She wasn’t Jolie, not really. She was a monster constructed from the past, formed from every look of pity, from the pain in my bedroom at night when the memory of my parents’ deaths crushed me, from the belief I had no home and no family.

From every use of the word orphan.

Turns out, that monster wasn’t her. It was her father.

She sent the email, yes, but he forced her hand.

It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her.

I really did get it all wrong, haven’t I? I was too blind with my anger to even stop for a moment to consider it.