How the Light Gets In (Cracks Duet #2)(18)
“What?” I leaned forward in my chair.
He rubbed his mouth with his fingers and stood up. He paced the room then came to stand in front of me. It looked like it took a lot for him to say his next words. “Each time I release a new perfume, I always imagine we’re having a conversation.”
“You and me?” I was taken aback.
“Yes.” His voice was passionate. “I think of you going into a store and trying it on. I amuse myself wondering what you think, which products are your favourite.” He shook his head. “Were you not even a little bit curious?”
More than anything.
“Of course I was curious, but I was already so jealous of everything you’d achieved. I guess I didn’t want to know how amazing your perfumes were, because it would only make me feel like more of a failure.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re not a failure.”
I huffed a self-deprecating breath. “Tell that to my bank account.”
“Evelyn, if it weren’t for your influence, I might never have become what I am today. You do realise that, don’t you?”
I flushed and stared at my hands, unsure how to respond. Dylan moved about the room, going to different shelves and plucking out various bottles.
“What are you doing?”
“Introducing you to a world you helped create,” he replied with fervour. I watched as he placed each bottle in front of me, then opened the scent named Synaesthesia. He knelt before me, took my hand, then turned it over to expose my wrist. He gave a soft spritz and fresh jasmine assaulted my senses, plunging me into memory. It had always been one of my favourite flowers to grow, had seemed so exotic and pretty in a place that was neither.
“When we were teenagers, you sometimes smelled like jasmine,” Dylan said. “Then you told me how you liked to make jasmine water in the mornings. When I smell this scent, I think of you pottering around your flat, watering your plants and putting the kettle on for tea.”
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, overly aware of Dylan’s fingers that still circled my wrist. It was hard to get my head around the fact that my humdrum, mundane existence inspired a perfume thousands of women around the world wore every day.
He plucked up another bottle, Hiraeth, uncapped it and sprayed it on my other wrist. I inhaled and closed my eyes. It smelled like a rainforest; I could literally feel the fat drops of water hit my face, run down my neck and pool at the base of my spine.
“Remember that weekend I came back to Dublin for Conor’s graduation?” Dylan murmured. His eyes traced the line of my wrist, ran up my arm to rest on my face. “You got caught in the rain.”
“It was pouring down,” I added, falling through the rabbit hole of memory. “And then you just appeared.”
His eyes sparkled, his smile intense when he said, “That day was when Hiraeth was born.”
Chapter 6
Eight years ago
I stood by the bus stop in the rain, no other choice but to get soaked. I made the mistake of leaving the house without an umbrella, so it was my own fault really. It was rush hour, and the shelter was already full of people huddled under, trying not to get wet.
Currently, I was working as a supermarket cashier. It wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, but at least I got a discount on groceries.
Yeah, not very glamourous, but life wasn’t glamourous, not for the hoi polloi. Weirdly, I used to think that meant the upper classes, then Yvonne told me it was Greek for the common people, the rank and file. I guessed, because it sounded a little like ‘high people’ I made the wrong assumption.
Anyway, that was me. Your average worker bee, plodding her way through life, dissatisfied and a little sad, but not dissatisfied and sad enough to make a change. To be honest, happiness seemed like a lie made up by fairy tales and self-help books. Now my eyes were open to all the dark corners that hovered around the light.
Like the dementors in Harry Potter, they waited for their chance to swallow you up. That’s why I didn’t bother trying for anything good. Good things were only taken away.
Like Sam.
I shook myself out of my dreary thoughts and wriggled my toes around in my soaked shoes. I looked forward to stripping off and sinking into a nice, warm bath as soon as I got home. Yvonne worked tonight, so I’d have the place to myself. I’d pop a ready meal in the microwave, and maybe even open a bottle of wine . . .
“Evelyn?”
I blinked, distracted from my plans for the evening when I heard my name. I glanced up and my jaw dropped. Dylan? He held a large black umbrella and wore a dark winter coat and woollen hat. It was hard to make him out past the fat drops of rain obscuring my vision. They pooled in my eyebrows and fell into my eyes.
I blinked some more and stared at him. I hadn’t seen him in over three years. When he first left for the U.S., he’d sent monthly letters keeping me updated on how things were going. It was so Dylan to do something completely old school like that. Still, I never wrote back. I knew it sounded cruel, but staying in touch only prolonged the pain for both of us. Eventually, he got the message and quit writing.
In a way, I was disappointed.
In another way, I was relieved.
No contact was so much better than getting sneak peeks of his new life and feeling down that I wasn’t with him.