Nate Simons...is Nicolo Sestini.
“There’s something else I have to explain.”
But if I married Nate, and Nate isn’t real—
“That night you saw me—”
It’s my body that reacts first, jerking like it’s been hit, but it’s only after my heart starts aching, and my chest starts tightening, that my brain finally catches up.
No no no no no no no no no no no.
It finally realizes what he’s about to say and I'm not...I don't think I will ever be ready for it.
"D-Don't."
"I know how it may seem—"
"I said I don't want to talk about it!"It’s not like me to raise my voice like this, and I hate that he’s the one who’s making me do things that aren’t me. It’s like the eighteen years never changed a thing. He only has to show up, and I’m twenty-four again, and not forty-two. I’m an idiot again, and all the things I learned from the past eighteen years are gone.
"Juniper—"
"Will you please just get out? I can start screaming—"
"It won’t make a difference,” he says quietly.
“What do you mean—”
“Because I own this building...and everyone who lives here. They’re all handpicked by me.”
Does he know how crazy that sounds? And does he realize how much crazier it sounds to someone like me, who still sees him as Nate the I.T. guy? Nate who only earns freelance money, and so it’s just not possible for him to buy buildings and, oh, I don’t know, can someone be so rich that they can buy people, too? Is he saying Morris is on his payroll? Morris, who’s in his eighties? What about Eppie? Does he “handpick” all the pets, too?
I look at him, and I can feel it happening.
My sanity slipping farther and farther away, and I don’t...
I don’t want to go back to who I was before...when he left me.
“Why are you back?” I hear myself whisper.
“I already told you—”
I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.” He told me what he had to do for eighteen years. But he...he never told me...
“Whyare you back?” I ask again. “What do you want?”
“You.”
I almost laugh.
“I want you back in my life—"
"No, thanks."
"That wasn’t a request."
"I don't care. I will never go back—"
"It wasn't real," he cuts me off abruptly. "What you saw that night—"