She probably thought I was really wondering why she left me. But I wasn’t. I’d asked to stay with him. She’d listened. No, I wanted to know what happened between the two of them. I wanted to understand. I wanted to know if what I felt for Léo would someday fizzle and die, if he or I would find someone else and run off with them.
She clicked off her iPad and stuck it into the side of the couch, sadness written on her face and punctuated by the quiver in her lip. “Oh Troy…”
I put up a steadying hand. “Mom… just tell me.”
I’d never asked. I’d never wondered. I was young—and being young means that you think everything in life is as simple as the way they simplify things in school. I was young and so I thought that it was simply because she didn’t love me or my ‘perfect’ father enough. How could she not? The world loved him and admired him. He was a hero. What he created had saved lives. How was that not enough?
Because life—and love—isn’t simple. One plus one may equal two. But marriage plus child doesn’t equal love… doesn’t equal forever.
And Léo… Léo was far from perfect. And so was I. What if what we felt wasn’t enough?
“I loved your father, Troy. A part of me still does. But just because I love the snow doesn’t mean I want to live in an igloo.” Her eyes fell to her hands, knotting the apron she had on. “I asked for the divorce… I left… because the love we felt was no longer the same love that brought you into the world. I loved your father in the way that I knew how and I knew that he loved me in the way that he knew how. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t in the ways that we each needed.”
I huddled tighter into the cushions, letting her words wash over me. I’d never even asked my dad for the story. I just stuck to my assumptions and carved them down as truth.
“For a long time, I thought that it was okay. That we had you and that being together for you was more important and that I could live with the feeling of being second. And then I met Paolo,” she paused to clear her throat.
“I want you to know that I was never unfaithful to your father, Troy. But I need you to know that when I met Paolo, staying with your father was no longer a choice. I’d found someone who could love me the way that I needed to be loved. And I couldn’t let that go. Even more, honey… even after what it cost me… I wouldn’t set that example for you. I would never want you to sacrifice your chance at love because of the world around you and whatever restrictions or responsibilities it tries to hold over you.”
I sat frozen on the couch, the wheels in my mind spun out of control. I’d always assumed that she’d cheated because that was the simplest explanation for why she didn’t care.
“Your father knew that. He knew that in spite of everything that he had to offer, he couldn’t give me that. So, he was okay with the divorce. I didn’t know how to explain it to you at that age. Love is simple when you have it, but complicated when you don’t. I didn’t know how to explain the complicated between your father and me. I guess I hoped that as you got older, you’d go to him—or me—with questions. Maybe I should have realized better that Damien Milanovic excels at many things, but admitting his faults isn’t one of them,” she let out a soft rueful laugh. “I’m sorry I never told you, Troy.”
I sat there and listened to her words, but the only thing that I heard was that she’d found someone to love her the way that she needed. Just like I had found Léo. He wasn’t perfect or Prince Charming, but he loved me like a fairytale. One that was mine. Not the worlds but ours.
And I would fight for it. I would always fight for it.
Three Weeks Later
I told myself things were okay. Things were not okay.
The first week after spring break wasn’t too bad—we were still riding off the high of being around each other almost twenty-four seven. We talked. We drew. We had sex. Lots of it. I’d never been so sated or so sore in my entire life.
And then classes started and the high that we’d made a home on now felt like it was standing on stilts. At first, I tried to ignore it. I tried to make up for it during the time I was with him. But each day it got worse and worse.
Every touch, every contact became more secretive, more hidden. But that wasn’t the worst; the worst was the looks. I could see it every time his gaze glanced over me in class, sitting at my desk, next to three other students, taking notes on what he was teaching—hundreds of incessant reminders that I was his student, that I was too young. And that we were wrong.
And to make things worse, each day was one more tick in the time bomb that was set to go off when the semester ended and Léo went back home—back to Paris. Unless I was touching him—holding onto him for dear life—every breath felt like a betrayal as it pushed us farther and farther apart.
The reminders of why we shouldn’t be together were building a wall right in front of me. I watched them layer on brick by shameful brick. And my chances to break them down were becoming fewer and farther in between.
I wiped my eyes of the tears that had begun to pool in them and huddled deeper into the corner chair at the Wise Bean. This was what I’d been reduced to—crying in private so that my heart wouldn’t break in front of him.
When my mom left, my immature brain rationalized that maybe I wasn’t enough for them. But for my dad… for one person… maybe I’d be at least enough for him. So, I worked. Hard. I did everything the way I thought he would want in the best way that I knew how. It still wasn’t enough.
I came here for so many reasons—anger, revenge. I also came here because for the first time I was doing something for myself. Right or wrong—it started with the first slice of the scissor blade into my leg that night. I took back my pain. I claimed it as my own and gave it a home on my body. I took back my emotions, my goals, my dreams, and carved them into my skin.
Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas.
Right or wrong—my tattoo became my battle cry. Those words were inked into the deepest recess of my soul. And they were never meant to be about anyone else—not my dad, not Léo; they were meant for me. I loathed myself for a long time, believing that I was never enough. Right or wrong—that tattoo was my promise to myself that from this, I would grow; from this, I would do better; from this self-loathing, I would find something in myself to love again.
And then I met Léo.
I was enough for him. But that wasn’t the point.
Léo insulted his way into my life, he pushed at that part of me that had gone so underdeveloped for so long—the part that did things that were in my best interest.
Being more than enough for Léo was a consequence of that.
He brought out more of the me I’d kept hidden, the me that was afraid of letting everyone except myself down. He poked and prodded and taunted that part of me and, in turn, that part flared to life desperate to take what I wanted.
It just so happened that what I wanted was him.
And that’s why I desperately texted Kev and told him to meet me here ASAP. I tried to think on my own but I couldn’t. What I felt was too much for me to come up with how to make this better.
I’d wracked my brain about how I was—how we were going to survive this. And the best I could come up with was either a) I ran away to Paris, b) he got a permanent job here, or c) the world ended as thousands of miles of oceans separated us.
They were all shitty plans.
I chewed on my lip impatiently watching as Kev walked in and brushed the snow off of his jacket, glancing around the shop before he spotted me.
“I need your help,” I blurted as soon as he got within hearing range.
Kev’s head jerked back. “I thought you wanted to hear about my week with Jake. I haven’t talked to you like at all about it.”
My eye-roll was so slow it could have auditioned for the Matrix. I had heard about his week. In fact, it was all I’d heard about for the past several weeks. Either that or what their summer plans were looking like.
“Alright, fine,” he huffed. Drama w
as his undeclared second major. “What do you want from me? It’s not like you were too keen on sharing any juicy details about your week-long stay with Professor le Prick. What else was I supposed to talk about?”
I glared at him. The coffee shop was always dead right before our math class but still.
“You have five seconds before I tell you about how we went skinny dipping—”
“I need your help because the semester is going to end in two weeks!” I blurted out as I stood and grabbed our two coffees that just came up on the bar.
“So, you need help with your grades?” He stuck a hand up next to his mouth and whispered, “I assumed screwing the professor would do the trick, but I’d be more than happy to give it a go—Ow!”
I gripped his hand and twisted with a sweet smile. “Gay man has got jokes this afternoon.” Almost instantly, I released my hold. I needed to talk to him not torture him. “The semester is ending, Kev, and that means he’s going to leave. What am I going to do?”
He blinked twice before processing. “Well… you could let Luke take you out?”
“Never mind,” I huffed, blinking back frustrated tears, and stood. Before I could get any farther, his scrawny arm yanked me back into my seat.
“Sorry.” It was a good thing he actually looked remorseful or his coffee would have ended up down his pretty pink shirt. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize that this was serious. That it was serious between you two.” His eyes narrowed on me. “How… serious is it, Troy?”
My confidence drained from me and I ducked my head. Maybe I was an idiot. Who falls in love at eighteen? Who falls in love with their professor? Who thinks about running away to Paris for said ornery professor? No one. No one but me.
“Oh… my… God…” The words were already out in the air, Kev just breathed them in and spit them back out. “You love him?” And then, “You love him!”
A single tear leaked free.
“Am I dumb?” Of all people, he was the most likely to tell me the truth. Or maybe he was the least.
“No!” And then he was hugging me. “At least, not when it comes to that. Fashion… maybe…” A watery laugh bubbled into his shoulder just as he pulled back. “Okay. I’m sorry. It’s taking me a minute to process and I process with sarcasm first.”
“I-I don’t know what to do. The semester ends. He goes back to France and I’m still here… for three more years.” Every time I thought that, it felt like my stomach acid had leaked from its confines and was literally eating away at my insides. “Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t love him. Maybe this is just a really stupid crush.”
Kev anchored my face in front of his. “Don’t do that to yourself, Troy,” he commanded. “Don’t belittle how you feel or what’s important to you. I know you love him. I was only pretending that I didn’t so I wouldn’t steal your thunder.”
A laugh gurgled out of me. Sounded about right.
“I know it because I see how you look at him. You look at him like he’s the only one who sees you.”
Shit, now I was really going to cry.
“Seriously—” He shoved a napkin in my face. “And you were worried about me making a scene.”
I laughed and blew my nose. Only Kev could bring lightness into something that felt so heavy.
“So. Moving on. You love him. He’s going back to Paris. You’re not a kid, Troy. You’re eighteen. You can just go.”
“I know.” The crumbled napkin felt as thin as my excuse. “But I’m in school here. And…” I trailed off, laughing slightly at myself. “I’m enjoying my major. I’m enjoying art. I didn’t expect to. I didn’t care if I liked it or not because it was an escape. But now, I really do want this, to finish this. I need to do this.”
I began tearing off little bits of the napkin and setting them on the table like I was ripping off little bits of my soul and sharing them with my best and arguably only friend.
“I don’t know if you know, but my dad developed this drug a few years ago and it cures lung cancer. And that was always my goal: be good enough at that and then create something just as important.” More little pieces made their way out into the open. “But then I came here, and I realized something: the thing that saved my life wasn’t a drug or chemical. It was a set of poems. I read them and they absorbed into my system. They soaked into all my broken, malignant cells and began to heal me from the inside out. I realized that sometimes, there are things that threaten to destroy us from the inside, but they aren’t things that can be cured with a drug or a doctor. Sometimes, those things can only be cured by art.”
Finally, there was nothing left of the napkin, so my eyes rose reluctantly to his.
“I’m not a poet,” I assured him with a laugh. “But I can create. I can make something that just might touch someone in the way that those poems touched me. Because that’s how art works. You paint your soul onto that canvas so that those looking at it know they aren’t alone.”
Kev held up a hand and covered his face. “Stop. You have to stop.” This time, he pulled himself a napkin. “If you don’t stop, there will be no one to hold us together here for long enough to find a solution.”
I chuckled. “Sorry. My point is that I want to do this. I need to do this. And I’m afraid that if I leave it because I love him, I’ll either never forgive him or worse, I’ll never forgive myself. I won’t let this part of my future be dictated by someone else ever again.”
Kev dabbed his eyes with another napkin, but his laughter was the last thing I expected to hear.
“What?”
He sighed, his head falling back for a moment. “It’s a good thing you have me, hun.” And then he winked, sealing my confusion. “Because I have the answer to your problem.”
“No, you don’t,” I retorted. I’d been crippled by this for three weeks, there was no way he’d figured it out in three seconds.
“You’re going to go to Paris… and you’re going to continue school.” He wiped all the napkin pieces into his palm, cleaning up all of my mess. “You can study abroad at the Beaux-Arts for a semester or two. And then you can transfer there. Or somewhere else. Or come back.” Oh my God. “But at least it gives you time. And a reason to go and not worry.”
I was dumbstruck for several long, embarrassing, exciting seconds.
My insides were screaming. Jumping and screaming with relief and anticipation. I didn’t even think… Once the seed was planted that I had to choose, I never looked back; I never thought outside of that box.
Maybe because if I came up with a solution, then the only question left was whether Léo wanted me to go with him… and that was a much harder, much scarier question to face.
“If he feels even close to the same way, he’ll want you there, Troy.”
My eyes flicked to him. It was like Kev stalked my mind, the sneaky little jerk.
I searched for something close to a brave smile and murmured, “I guess we’ll find out.”
I stared at her face. Always her face.
On paper. In class. In my mind.
Love is like war. It’s not meant to be won, it’s meant to be fought for.
And Troy was every battle in the war I would never win. Still, I ran straight to her, I threw everything that I had at her, and in the end, I’d give my life to her if that’s what it required.
Ma petite bataille.
She put on a brave face. Her sweet little body gave and then took everything I inflicted. But in the moments when I couldn’t consume her, I saw her fading. I saw the fight consuming her and it killed me because ma petite was so strong when she let herself.
Fucking Americans and their fucking prude predispositions. Connards.
I saw her. I wanted her. I took her. If this were Paris, no one would give a shit if I dated a student. Hell, it was close to the norm. But this wasn’t Paris. This was Rhode Island. And that meant one slip-up and the next exhibit would be Troy painted with her own scarlet letter.
Groaning, I flipped to another blank page,
trying to focus on drawing something else besides those almond-shaped eyes.
How did I tell her that I didn’t give a shit about her prude school or what anyone thought? How did I tell her that I didn’t care what happened to her future in school, her career, as long as she was mine?
No. I did care. I did fucking care.
That’s why I didn’t touch her. That’s why I pulled back. Because I was getting too close to the point where I said ‘fuck it’ to anyone or anything that got between me and her—even if that thing was her future. She’d sacrificed herself for so long… I couldn’t make her do it again.
I dropped my pencil at the knock on the door. Even though I knew she was in class right now, my body still jumped like a racehorse behind the gate. Unless she was here in front of me… kissing me… her cunt moaning around my cock… I was on edge.
“Come in.”
Giselle peeked inside. “Sorry to bother you. I have the instructions typed up for the final if you want to take a look over them.” The papers drifted down onto my desk. “Are… Are you working again?”
She was my assistant. She knew that I hadn’t been able to do anything on the project that was supposed to be done months ago.
I looked up at her for a split second before I grabbed the papers and scanned them.
“It’s because of her, isn’t it?”
Again, I didn’t answer. Giselle was smart, I gave her that. She’d also worked with me for a year—a year when the only masterpiece I’d created was the unique blend of bitterness and rage that I wore like armor. And that armor had been absent these past few weeks—replaced with a frustration over feelings I’d never felt before. Amélie was nothing like this.
Amélie was like the white flag of defeat whipping in the fickle wind—ultimately not enough to save your life.
Troian… even just her name was the battle cry that would inspire a man to risk his life for a lost cause.
“Léo…”
I slammed my pen down on the desk. I wasn’t giving her an answer. She was nothing to me. But even that—the silence—was answer enough. And just like me, she knew the student thing was only a problem here.
The Fall of Troy Page 30
