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Or maybe she does.
Maybe she realizes it’s why I acted the way I did with her.
The waiter brings by our wine, and I raise my glass to hers. “Here’s to your grandmother,” I tell her, leaning back enough.
She does the same, carefully clinking the wineglass against mine.
I swirl the wine around the glass and breathe it in before having a sip. The wine is quite good, but I want to hear Laila talk.
“Listen, love,” I say to her, noting how she stiffens when I call her love, a pet name I had for her. “I know you think I wouldn’t understand about your grandmother, but I can at least try. I know what loss feels like. My father didn’t die, but it felt like he did.”
Actually, it felt like I was the one who died the day he dropped me off at the orphanage.
“That’s the thing,” she says softly. “My grandmother hasn’t died, but…it feels like she did. I walked in there today, and I saw her very much alive, and yet I was a stranger to her. And I’m so afraid that means she’ll become a stranger to me.” She sniffs and has a sip of her wine, swallowing hard. “She’s eighty-eight. She’s not young. I know the loss is coming. The biggest loss. I’ve known that since I was young, that she was so much older and that she wouldn’t be with me my whole life. I knew that I would lose her just as I lost my parents. I just don’t know how to…”
“I know,” I tell her, placing my hand on her thigh. I meant it out of comfort, but she’s giving me the side-eye.
“James, what are you doing?”
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” I ask, hesitating, lifting up my hand. That’s the last thing I want, especially after the day she’s had.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. “You’re not making me feel uncomfortable.”
I give her thigh a light squeeze, loving that I can touch her, even if it’s just like this, even if she’s about to tell me to take my hand away.
“I don’t want this to happen.” She says it so softly that I have to lean in close.
“Your grandmother?”
“You,” she says, turning her face toward mine. “I don’t want us to go down that same path we went down before.”
I know what she’s saying. I know why she’s saying it. I know I was an asshole to her, and while I had my reasons and excuses, I never even got the chance to tell them to her. Not that it matters now.
But despite knowing why she’s saying it, I can’t help myself.
I’m nothing but impulse.
I reach over and grab her chin lightly with my fingertips, holding her face in place. “What path?” I ask, my voice dropping a register.
She’s staring at my lips again. “You know the path.” Her nostrils flare as she breathes. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I can see that,” I tell her.
“You were such a fucking asshole,” she says. Her tone is steady, but her eyes, they flash with anger I hadn’t counted on.
“I know I was. And I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” she says snidely. “You slept with me and then practically kicked me out of your bed. I couldn’t leave fast enough for you. And then after that, you avoided me like I had the plague. You made me feel like shit, James.”
Her words are a knife to the stomach. Oh, I know it’s all my fault. I know that I acted like a total wanker the moment she told me she was falling for me, the moment the fear of god came alive. I know she deserved better than that, so much better, and that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. I just never told her that. I had the chance, but I chose to be selfish and keep it to myself, because to tell her would mean making myself vulnerable, and I wasn’t ready for that.
I’m still not sure that I am. Which is another reason I should stop trying so hard with her, because deep down inside, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to handle what I get. People change, but inner demons—well, sometimes those things just grow.
But it’s as I’m abruptly letting go of her face that my arm comes down and smacks the top of my wineglass. It topples over, splashing the entire glass of sangiovese onto my lap and her chest.
“Fuck!” I swear, trying to scoot back in the seat.
We both get to our feet as a waiter hurries over, shaking his head at the mess. He motions to the bartender for something to clean it up with. Meanwhile the whole bar is watching us.
