“That is quite an outfit,” a voice said behind me.
I jumped out of my seat, barely catching my computer before it crashed into the grass. “Penn.”
He didn’t give me any of his telltale signs that he was amused. Or even…that he was glad to see me. I’d probably fucked up. Oh well, too late now. I was too relieved to see him to do anything but smile at his beautiful face.
“Natalie,” he said calmly, slipping his hands into his pockets. “What are you doing here?”
“I was wrong,” I gasped out. I set the computer down on the bench and faced him. “I was so very wrong about everything. And you were right all along. I just didn’t realize it all until Enzo.”
He looked at me quizzically. “Enzo?”
I shook my head. This wasn’t coming out right. I’d made all of these plans on the flight over, and now, my sleepy brain was trying to ruin this. “I flew home to Charleston after you left. I went to see Amy, and Enzo had moved in. That’s why she’d renovated the guest bedroom. They were living together, and I didn’t even know. I’m her best friend, and she hadn’t even told me that they were living together or anything. She said I was busy. I wasn’t busy. I was too fucking self-centered to see what I was doing to my life. To look past my need for revenge to what was really happening all around me. The damage I was causing to even my oldest friendship.
“So, I took a step back and saw how out of touch I’d been really. Then, well, Amy, Mel, and I had another cleansing to close the circle. I don’t even know if that makes sense to you.” I warily peeked up at him.
“You burned more things and went skinny-dipping?”
“Technically, yes,” I said with a grin. “We burned my book. Tore out all the pages and gave them up in offering as a ritual burning to cleanse what had happened between my first ritual burning and the last. Then I let the water wash it all away. It was about me. About me coming back to myself.” I gestured to my bohemian clothing. “You know, the real me.”
“I see. You think a ritual burning and new clothes change who you’ve become.”
“No. It’s not that at all. It’s that the person I was when I did those things, the black hole that I had fallen into, it’s gone. The things I did to Katherine and Lewis and the mountains I climbed to take them down…I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want to be a person you turn away from. A person who you think could have my closest friend in New York arrested. What happened to Jane was horrible, but I didn’t do it.”
“I know,” he said.
“You do?”
He nodded. “When I went to see Court, she told me that you didn’t know. That she hopes that you can forgive her. That she never wanted to hurt you.”
“Good,” I whispered. My stomach twisted at the words.
I had been worried about Jane. I couldn’t believe what she had done to get to the place that she was at. Especially because I’d had such kinship with her. I could have been her under different circumstances. So desperate to belong that I broke the law. I was thankful that I’d never gotten that far. Gone to that place.
“How is Court?”
“Pissed off. But my mother is confident that all charges will be dropped. He was glad that I was there.”
“I bet he was. I’m glad you two are getting along.”
Penn shrugged as if waiting for me to say more.
“So, I guess I wanted you to know that I never wanted to hurt you. I know there are consequences to my actions that I couldn’t have foreseen. And you’re one of them. Or maybe I did know,” I said softly, “and that’s why I never told you everything that I was doing.
“Then…then I found the love lock in all of my things. I was helping my mom clean out the attic. And I realized how much of an idiot I was. Like, for forever. I blamed you for leaving me that day. I blamed you for everything. But I should have accepted it and moved on like a normal person. My grudges…they’ve always been a part of me. I don’t trust easily, and my forgiveness is even harder to achieve. I want to try to let it go. Because the minute that I held that lock, I knew how much I was in love with you that night. Stupid young love that made no sense, and yet it was written all over that impossible lock. I kept it because I was so mad at you and so in love with you. And I realized those emotions were all tangled up with how I felt about you. How I still feel about you. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve hurt each other.” I fingered the crown necklace lying against my chest. “But our love has bridged nearly a decade. And it’s still burning just as hot. I can do better. We can do better. I want this so bad, Penn. Just you. Just us. And I’m not going to leave Paris until we’ve talked this out.”