Page 54 of Just for a Taste

D espite having been gone only a handful of minutes, when I entered the abbess’s suite, I was met with pillows overturned, the bathroom door thrown open, and a desperate hound sniffing every leaf in search of its master.

One of the unopened letters crackled beneath my foot as I stepped into the room, immediately drawing Zeno’s attention.

“Cora!” he breathed with a combination of shock and relief. “I thought you had—”

“I’m leaving, Zeno,” I cut in before he could say it himself. Before either of us could deny it was happening. “I just came back to say goodbye and grab my bag.”

It was waiting for me under the bed, already filled with my essential belongings and topped with a car key. I realized with a pang of guilt that Noor must have packed while I was asleep—or perhaps, in a somnolent state, I packed it myself. Either way, one of us had known. Now it was time for Zeno to know too.

He stood, a frail, quivering barricade in front of the door. He hadn’t had an ounce of blood in God knew how long. I despised Zeno for an instant, for making me speak and act so coldly, until I remembered it was myself I hated. Who I would hate even more by the end of the night.

“Please, Zeno,” I said, trying in vain to muster any sense of authority as I approached. “Let me go.”

“Cora—” When he said my name, even in that haughty tone and even under these circumstances, my heart still fluttered. I still wanted. Perhaps it was upon seeing this that his demeanor hardened, and he finished his sentence. “—I can’t. You gave yourself to me to love you, to keep you safe. To have you. I can’t rescind any of that.”

“Zeno,” I replied sternly, pushing him aside with just as much force as was necessary. “Goodbye. I mean it.”

Goodbye . Two syllables pierced him, brought him to his knees at my feet.

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice now as soft and shaky as his grip on my wrists.

For the first time in days, the man at my feet felt like more than just a whisper of the one I would have given everything for. And every ounce of me then wanted to fall to my knees and press myself into the crevices I could have traced with my eyes closed, even now. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to comfort him and hold him and forget this had ever happened. I had swallowed the words I love you so many times, they were now a mouthful of bile threatening to erupt from my lips.

But all that came out was an emotionless, “I know.”

I had never known before that moment that it was possible to see a heart break, nor how horrible it would look. I half expected to see crimson bloom across his shirt. Now I was forced to carry the knowledge that it was entirely my fault that Zeno looked on the verge of disintegration.

“Please tell me you love me too,” he whimpered. “I’m begging you.”

I couldn’t bear to look at him a second longer because I knew I would fold. Those four words, I love you too , had the power to end his anguish, to mend together his heart and practically unwind the last few minutes.

I looked away and said nothing. The desperation in his voice heightened tenfold. “I’ll chew off my own hands. I’ll cut my throat. I’ll do anything. ”

“I know you would!” I cried, looking at him for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Looking at a reflection of my own agony. “But I don’t want any of that.”

“Then what do you want? Please. Anything.”

With a shaky exhale, I let my hands go limp, and they slid out from his fingers. Fighting back tears, I turned from him and forced my eyes to the spot on the floor, where my heart was residing. “You’re going to devour everything around you. You’re going to devour us both.”

I expected him to argue with me, to question a single word, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked a question that tore into me: “You do love me, don’t you? Even after all this?”

Maybe things would be easier if I lied and said I hated him. Maybe that way, I could shatter his heart irreparably and leave no chance between us. Or maybe it would be easy in another way, and it would spur Zeno to double down on his efforts to keep me in the abbey.

But easy wasn’t necessarily right.

“I do,” I whispered. “I really do.”

The opposite of my expectation happened. I had seen countless times how, when cut off from its base and placed in water, a rose would slowly die. No matter how lovingly maintained, once snipped away, there was no choice but to watch the once-vibrant blooms wilt and wither.

With roses, this process took days, or even weeks. With Zeno, it took only seconds.

“You need to leave,” he murmured, staggering to his feet. “You need to leave me here and leave the key with me.”

Despite the weight of our conversation and how everything else had faded away, I hadn’t forgotten the key was against my hip. I reached into my pocket and grasped it so tightly, it threatened to draw blood. Maybe if I held it tight enough, the tiny key would embed itself into my skin, and I wouldn’t have to give it to Zeno.

But hadn’t I known deep down that this was a possibility?

“I—are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said with utter resolve. “You love me, so you must. And I love you, so I must.”

How strongly I wished that he was wrong, that I could argue any of it. But I couldn’t. I shut my eyes tightly, freeing a torrent of tears, and held out my hand. Once I felt the warmth of his own beneath it, I peeled apart my fingers and let the key fall out.

“Thank you, mia passerotta .”

I could hear the smile in Zeno’s voice, just as much as I could the tears. I broke away from him, hugging my arms tightly around myself in lieu of him.

His hand—the one not holding his mortality—gently folded in mine, and I allowed him to walk me over to the bed.

“Just stay a little longer. Please. Just for a few more minutes, hold my hand, and listen to me. That’s all I ask of you.”

I bit my lip and slowly nodded, joining him. The plush was soft, the light was soft, and my hand clasping Zeno’s was as firm as I could make it.

“It scared me when I was younger, how little I felt,” he said, closing his eyes. “I used to think that maybe feeling had been trained out of me, but now I think I was just born with something missing. Some piece in my brain or my soul that was supposed to make me alive. Maybe my body had the knowledge that I never would really be alive.” Zeno’s pale lashes flickered open, and a small, strange smile crossed his lips. “I was able to find some things that made me feel, when I got older. But no one and nothing made me feel as much as you.”

I tried to pull away my hand. “What are you—”

Zeno firmly held mine, looking into my eyes with full sincerity. “I’m not saying any of this to make you stay, Cora.”

“Then why?”

“I just need to say it. I’ve thought this so many times, and I need to say it for once. I need someone to hear me one time in my life.”

“How can I believe you?” I cried. “Don’t you know . . .?” How this makes me feel?

He laughed a short, bitter laugh. “Of course I do. Allow me to be selfish, just for now. See me as I am for a breath. I know you’re the only one who can.”

I tightened my jaw and looked back up at the ceiling, hoping the angle could disperse my tears and prevent them from rolling down my cheeks. Zeno did the same.

“I thought about a lot of ways to make you stay. I considered reinforcing every inch of this abbey, employing dozens of guards. Tying you to the bed, making you look at me every morning and night, just to make you think of me. But—” Zeno placed the key onto his chest and ran his newly freed hand through his hair in a strangely casual gesture. “—I knew I could never truly have you. And I always knew it was my destiny to die alone.”

“It didn’t have to be like this,” I whimpered once I could stifle the words.

“No, it did. I don’t have it in me to love in parts.” He sat up more, foretelling the end of his confession. “This abbey was always my casket. Even if you made me feel alive for a while, I was supposed to die here. I’m ready now, though. I’ve been ready to die for as long as I remember.”

I finally let the sobs break free, so ragged and wretched they wracked my entire body. It was Zeno’s turn, I knew, to have to restrain every muscle in his body not to hug and comfort me. He simply held my hand as I cried until I couldn’t produce tears any longer.

Then, after one final squeeze, he released me.

“Will you take the finches with you?” Zeno asked, eyes flickering over to where the cages resided. “They don’t deserve to be here either.”

“Yes. I’ll take good care of them.”

“Nobody else could do it better.”

Lying back down, he grasped the key tightly again and let out a long breath—the strange, final breath of a dying beast. It was hollow compared to the sharp whistle of a gale just beyond the window. He turned his back away from it and hugged his arms to his chest like a scared child.

“My God,” he said to the wind. “I’m terrified.”

That was the end of our conversation, I knew. That was all there was to say.

And yet, just as I was about to leave the room for the last time, Zeno spoke with the most pain, fear, and love I had ever heard in a man’s voice.

“Please . . . just know I’ll love you forever. Remember that my bones will love you.”

I looked over my shoulder at him, etching his face into my mind, searing his eyes into me. “I love you too,” I whispered. “I always will.”

Finally, I realized there were tears in his eyes as well, glinting like the key in his hand. A man mourning himself.

“Can you open the window before you go?” he asked with a genuine smile. “I want to see the stars tonight.”