Page 113 of Van Cort

“Because sleeping at her place suggested the kind of commitment I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, offer. I was thinking about it, but then you arrived and… plans changed. Emotions changed. The future possibly changed.”

“Has she stayed here?”

“She hasn’t even been here.”

“Do you want her here?” He smiles and tugs at his tie until he’s removing it and standing. “Question a little hard for you, brother? Need a drink? Careful now, we wouldn’t want you to lose your temper.”

A deep rumble of low laughter comes from him as he walks from the room to the kitchen, and I listen as cupboards open and the espresso machine starts whirring.

He comes back in a few minutes later, two cups in his hands and a smile on his face. “Why do you keep trying to play with your feelings, West?”

“My feelings?”

“Yes, yours. We both know you want her as much as I do, and we both know how perfect she is. Just get whatever you need to say about Lara out of your mouth, and then we can talk about River.”

“I don’t need to talk about Lara.” He sips his drink and stares at me over the cup. “I don’t.”

“You do. That’s why you came back, isn’t it?To harass me, to hurt me? You never did get the words out of your mouth back then. Maybe you’re man enough now.”

I stand, pissed at the inference. “Fuck you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Exceptional response.”

“Well, I doubt your callous ass needs to talk about her, so why bother?”

“Actually, I do. There’s a lot I want to say.”

“Really, like what? Because you threw her over a fucking cliff, Rhett. I loved her, and you threw her over a goddamned cliff because you couldn’t get your own way. What else is there to say?”

“I didn’t throw her. I just didn’t hold on when you reached for her.”

“Don’t try that shit. You put her there, and you could have just pulled her up. Given her to me. Thrown yourself over the cliff. Anything but that.”

“Would that have made you happy? Me dying instead?”

“Yes.” I frown. “Or no. But aren’t you the least bit fucking sorry?”

“For what?”

“What the hell does that mean? All of it.”

He sighs and leans back on the sectional, looking out his penthouse window rather than at me. “I had no intention of coming back home after leaving for Harvard, but I did. For her. I went back to that cliff every time and spent hours trying to find a way of rectifying what I’d done. There wasn’t an answer. As far as the world knew, it was just an accident. She’d gone hiking on her own, slipped, fallen. But I knew, and you knew, and you hated me for it, and then you left to deal with that however you have done. I understood that, but we didn’t even talk about it.” Talk?

“What did you want, Rhett, a little fucking chat about you killing her because you’re a selfish cunt?” He doesn’t even react, just carries on drinking coffee, as if none of my spite hits home like I need it to. “I was too fucking shocked, angry and hurt to talk about it. She was alive and calling my name one minute, and screaming then dead the next. Because of you. I never would have done that to you.”

“But you did, West. Or you might as well have done. You can’t imagine the insanity that took hold when she chose you. I don’teven want you to, because to understand it, you’d have to have lived through what I lived through. Survived what I survived. And you didn’t have to because of me.” He frowns and puts his coffee down. “But the real issue on that cliff, having had all these years to think about it, was you.”

“Me? It was you, Rhett. You let her go and-”

“Sit down. Listen.” I don’t. On principle. He can’t just demand I do something anymore. Not when it comes to this discussion, anyway.

Eventually, when he realises he can’t force that move, he chooses to go stand by the window and stare out of it. “Are you interested in understanding your part in it? At all? Because I need you to, West. For River’s sake, I need you to understand and take some accountability.”

“I didn’t have any part in it. You did it. Not me.”

“Do you remember what you said to me on that cliff? You said that I couldn’t take it out on both of you because of something I chose, that you didn’t ask me to protect you, that I just did. Do you remember that?” Vaguely. What I mainly remember is watching him let go of her because he refused to lose to me. And then listening to her scream and die. “That was my love, West. That was every part of me loving and saving you. It was every inch of my being thinking of you before me. Did I ever ask for thanks? No. But the one goddamned time I needed your help to solve a problem, or you to take some pain from me, and you chose to let me suffer instead. Youchosethat response. At no point did you say no to her, or refuse her, or give a damn about the years of pain I’d given for you.”

Frigid air seems to fill the room around me, as if a ghost just crept into the space and whispered memories and thoughts I wasn’t prepared for. “That’s what sent me over the fucking edge, West. Not her, you. If you didn’t know that then, you do now.”