Hardly a word is spoken as we watch the sun set while we suck on the last of the plump raspberries, washing them down with the champagne. During the meal she’d moved closer and closer to me, and now her back is resting against my chest as we both face the river.
“Kaine?” she says, soft against the night breeze.
“Hm?”
“You don’t have to answer but…” And I already know what she’s going to ask. But I wish she wouldn’t. “What- what happened?”
I don’t answer.
I don’t answer for a very, very long time.
She doesn’t push it but she doesn’t say anything else either. I, on the other hand, can’t get Xavier’s “just ask her” comment out of my head.
“How about this,” I finally speak up. “How about we get three questions each? We get to veto the question but then we lose one of our questions. If we don’t have any left, we have to answer.”
“Deal,” she says instantly, nodding her head in agreement.
I laugh, “you don’t want to think about it?”
“No, because, I’m ready to answer anything.”
“I wish I could be as confident,” I tell her, honestly.
“You should be. You can tell me anything, Kaine,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Okay, who gets to go first?”
“Well, you already asked your question!” I tease her.
“No! That was before the game. I take it back now!” she sits up, protesting.
“Okay, okay. But you can still go first.”
“Okay,” she takes a sip of her drink as she mulls over a question. I’m surprised she doesn’t immediately repeat her last one. “Ok, how did you know about this place?” she asked as she waves her hand in front of us, gesturing towards the building.
“Well, um, I used to work in this building,” I tell her. “It’s one of the last ever printing presses in New York City. I worked here, illegally, when I was 13 and sleeping every night right over there.” I turn to point to the stack of discarded wood on the ground about 50 feet away.
“You’re kidding. You lived on the streets?”
“No. I mean, no, I’m not kidding. And no, I wasn’t exactly living on the streets. I was… er, I was living in a foster home at the time and well, sleeping behind the pile of crossties was a better alternative than going home.”
“Oh. Kaine.” She touches the side of my face and the look is so tender, I have to look away.
“It’s okay. I own this building now,” I shrug and she laughs. “Okay, my turn. Why did you try so hard to find me?” I have to know.
She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and I like that she’s taking my question seriously. “Kaine, I value my life. I love my life. I love my job, I love my friends. I love living in New York City. I love food. And champagne. I love all of it. And I would’ve been really, really sad if I had had to stop living so soon. So, it was really important to me that I got to thank the person, you, who let me keep living, even if just for another day.”
She doesn’t look at me while she’s talking, leaning back against my chest.
And I’m glad for that. Because it lets me take in every word without having to worry about her watching my expression. I imagine it would tell her more than I’m willing to let her know.
“Oh. Well, thanks accepted. And… it was all my pleasure,” I say, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.
“My turn!” She rubs her hands together and there’s something evilly maniacal about it. “Why didn’t you want me to find you?”
“Was that always going to be your question?” I ask her.
“Is that your second question?” she quips.
“No!”
“Then I’m not answering it until you answer mine,” she says haughtily.
I take a breath. “I didn’t want the real me to ruin the fantasy you had of me in your head.”
“You idiot,” she whispers, and my heart warms. “Am I allowed a bonus follow up question?”
“Let me hear it first,” I concede.
“What did you think my fantasy of you was like?”
I shrug. I hadn’t really thought of it in specific detail, just that I knew I wasn’t it. “I thought you’d want me, or imagined me, to be tall and handsome and rugged and sexy and brave.”
“So… the reality and the fantasy are one.”
I don’t have an answer that doesn’t sound self-deprecating, which would ruin the sharing mood. So, I don’t say anything.
“Silly, silly man,” she whispers and turn around, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek. I touch my cheek where she kisses me and give her wink. “Okay, next question for me!” she prompts me excitedly.
“Okay, let me see. If you could sit down with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be, and what’s the first question you’d ask them?”
Her body stiffens and she sits up, back straight, facing away from me. Running her hands through her hair, she pulls it to one side, to rest over her left shoulder. Her hands fall into her lap and she stares out into the night for a moment.
“I’d like to, I’d like to have one last meal with my mother. And I’d ask her if there’s anything she sees in me that reminds her of herself. My mother, she was, she was so beautiful. So graceful. Soft spoken, sweet. But I was too young to understand the deeper things like, how she saw the world, what she valued, what her dreams were. I just wonder… if any of it lives on in me.”
“I really wish I could give you that.”
“You can’t.”
“No. But I can tell you that if you did sit down with her, she’d tell you she’s proud of the person you are.”
“You don’t even know me,” she says. She’s right, but I know enough.
“I know you snort when you crylaugh,” I tease her.
“VETO!” she yells and throws an empty food container at me.
I swat it away. “And your last question?”
“Where did you get the scar?” she asks without hesitation.
And I answer the same way. “In a fire.”
She nods and says no more. I don’t know if I’m relieved or not.
“Okay, my last question what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” I ask her as if it’s the most important question in the world. She giggles, her whole body shaking, and I wrap my arms around her, wanting to be part of the constant joy she exudes, something I haven’t felt myself in so long. “What? You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite ice cream flavor!”
“Well, I don’t like ice cream,” she says and turns and looks at me just as my face expresses my horror.
“You don’t like ice cream?”
“No,” she shrugs, then her face breaks out into a grin “I FREAKING LOVE IT! I would eat ice cream for every meal of every day if I could.”
I clutch at my chest. “Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to have to leave you stranded here. I can’t be seen with someone who doesn’t like ice cream.”
“Vanilla,” she finally answers.