Page 103 of The Story of You

Then Silas’s words confirm my thoughts.

“I want to marry you in Barbados,” I said.

“I know. I’ll make it happen. Anything for you.”

“Except let me go.”

“Except that.”

And that night all I felt was freedom in captivity.

Is this the same as Stockholm Syndrome? Even if it is, Silas believed it. He still believes it.

He’s not happy with the state I’m in when he gets home from New York, and it emboldens him. It’s like I shake him out of the spell every now and then.

We arrived home late Sunday night. Oliver cried in my arms for a full hour. “Baba, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, Baba.”

I cried with him. “I’ll never leave you again, Eaglet.”

“Didn’t you have fun in New York, butterfly?” Aleksander said. He was devastated. We’d had some big moments while we were away and yet I’d once again confirmed that while I was his first place, he’d remain my second place.

“I did, the best time, but I’m not leaving Oliver again.”

He could still make me, but it would cost him, and he knew it. He went upstairs to his bedroom and shut the door.

ChapterThirty-One

Oliver ~ May 23rd 2009

Ibreathe a little easier when I get to the next “clue to finding Darius” part and sink into the story, getting comfortable on my bean bag chair again. Silas writes:

Oliver was growing. He needed new clothes. As hard as this would be to believe now, Oliver hated shopping then.

“So? Shopping trip, Eaglet?” I said, fixing his hair.

“No, Baba.”

“No?” I tickled him to steal a giggle. I was willing to cheat. “Can I bribe you with a cinnamon bun?”

“Cinn’mon bun?” he said, in his little voice. He’d be four at the end of the month.

“Yeah. If we leave now, there’s plenty of time.”

Oliver wasn’t happy about leaving me to get in his car seat. “Nooooooo. Don’t leave me, Baba.”

“I’m not,” I said getting in the front seat. “I’m right here.”

I reached back to hold his foot while I drove, something I had taken to doing so that we were connected, and he knew I was staying. Fucking Aleksander Randall. He’d done this and I was now his accomplice. Oliver believed I was going to leave at any moment.

After an exhausting shopping trip in which I held Oliver the entire time—light as he always has been, two hours holding any weight is taxing—and used his stroller to hold our purchases, I drove us to the town over.

The third coincidence on the road to finding Darius was Darius being Darius and that I happened to be there for it. We’d gotten to know Sandy at the coffee shop with the delicious cinnamon buns. We went every Tuesday and she’d drop by to chat with Oliver who told her as much as he could about his ballerina exploits.

She’d noticed my new ring, the plain yellow gold band for my ring finger.

“That’s beautiful,” she’d said. “You’ve never worn it before.”

“I lost my other one,” I had lied. “My husband got me a new one for my birthday.”