All the tension has come swooping back in, like a cloud of insects choking the air between us. I can feel her shutting herself off like she’s done so many times, and I don’t know how to pull her back. We walk for a minute in silence before I can’t take it anymore.
“Paige, what’s wrong?”
She balls the fist of her good arm up in the sleeve of her shirt and stops again. We’re close enough to Avenue Mont-Royal now that I can hear the din of cars and foot traffic as people crowd into all the bars for after-work drinks.
“I’m just being stupid,” she says. She stands all tensed up for a few seconds before something in her breaks. Her shoulders slump, and her voice softens. “It’s like I keep waiting for this to go wrong, for something to happen that will prove I was right for believing all those things I believed for years. I mean, if you left, I—”
“Paige.” I step closer. “Paige, I’m not leaving.”
The words come out firm and certain, before I even think about what I’m saying.
About what that means.
She shakes her head. “But that’s the thing. I don’t want to be that girl who’s all like, ‘Oh, don’t leave me’ and takes over your life. I’mnotthat girl, and if you’ve got to go do your thing, then—”
“You aren’t that girl. That’s not how I see you at all.”
Regret zings through me as I realize just how stupid I was to mention Nautilus at all. She’s already pushing herself way out of her comfort zone by being here tonight, and I just threw a potential deal in LA at her with no warning.
“Look, the LA thing, I...I don’t even think I want it.”
It’s the first time I’ve said that out loud. I pause as the words ring in my ears.
“I don’t know what I want about anything,” I admit. “Just today, Jacob basically said he thinks of me as a son and wants me to continue the studio legacy, and you know what? I can see it. I can see it so clear, and it feelsgood, but there’s this part of me that’s just like...if I choose that, am I going to live my whole life not knowing? Am I going to fuck myself over with regret and just—”
“Hey.” Paige wraps her hand around my upper arm just as I start shaking. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to tell me all that. We don’t have to talk about it.”
I place my hand over hers as cars continue to pass by on the darkening street lined with low-rise apartment buildings. I can smell a hint of fall in the air when the cool night breeze shakes the spindly trees growing in the planters along the sidewalk.
“I wanted to tell you.” I squeeze her fingers. “I needed to. Sometimes it’s like you’re the only person Icantell.”
She nods, and when I look at her, I see everything we’ve shared, every moment that’s joined us together even through all the years apart. It scares the shit out of me to admit it so soon, but I see a future there too.
“You’re gonna be okay,” she says. “You’ve got a better handle on things than you give yourself credit for, you know.”
I lift the corner of my mouth. “I could say the same about you.”
We stare for a moment longer, hands still joined, and then she cracks a smile.
“God, we’re such messes tonight. Your friends are going to be so freaked out.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “They’ll just have to take what they get.”
We let our hands drop and start walking again, still laughing as we finally step onto Avenue Mont-Royal. I can see Taverne Toulouse’s typewriter font sign jutting out from the building up ahead.
“Hey.” My heart kicks up when Paige’s knuckles brush mine for a second. I glance at her, and she grins. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad I’ve got you.”
You’ve always had me.
I don’t say it, but it’s true. Whatever else has happened, that’s always been true.
