He shook his head. “Perhaps not.”

“You said we’d talk,” she injected, changing the subject.

“Yes.” He gazed at her for a moment. “I have some questions I would like to ask, and I have some things to say.”

“I didn’t agree to an inquisition.”

“This is hardly an inquisition. A few questions, primarily because when I first met you I was not entirely lucid. So forgive me if I wish to have a clearer idea of what actually happened.” Gabriel’s tone was slightly sarcastic.

She speared a strawberry with her fork and bolted it. Fine. Let him ask questions. I have a few to ask as well, and they won’t be pretty.

“Before we begin, I think we should agree to some ground rules. I’d like to speak to you about the past before we discuss the present or the future. Is that all right?”

“Agreed.”

“And I promise that what you say to me will be kept strictly confidential.

I hope that you will extend the same courtesy to me.”

“Of course.”

“Are there any ground rules you’d like to establish?”

“Um, just that we tell one another the truth.”

“Absolutely. Now, how old were you when we first met?”

“I’m the same age as Rachel,” she began, evasively, and when he looked at her sharply she added, “seventeen.”

“Seventeen?”

Gabriel cursed several times and took a lengthy drink of his Bellini.

He was clearly rattled by her revelation, which more than surprised her.

“Why did you come to see me that night?”

“I didn’t. I was invited to dinner, but when I arrived Rachel and Aaron were flying out the door. I heard a noise and found you on the porch.”

Gabriel seemed to think about this for a moment. “You knew who I was?”

“They talked about you all the time.”

“Did you know how fucked up I was?”

“No. No one ever said anything bad about you, at least not in front of me. Even afterward. They only said nice things.”

“What happened the morning after?”

This was the part that Julia didn’t want to talk about. She ignored his question and began eating her pastry, knowing he wouldn’t expect her to answer when her mouth was full.

“This is important, Julianne. I want to know what happened. My memory of the next morning is a little fuzzy.”

Her eyes flashed to his, and she swallowed hard.

“Really? Well, let me enlighten you. I woke up before sunrise, alone, in the middle of the woods. You left me there. I was terrified, so I grabbed the blanket and took off. But I couldn’t remember the path we took, and it was still dark. I wandered around in hysterics for almost two hours until I finally found my way back to your parents’ house.” Julia started to shake.

“I didn’t think I’d ever find my way back.”

“That’s where you went,” he breathed.

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t leave you.”

“What do you call it then?”

“I must have woken up shortly before you did. You were asleep in my arms, and I didn’t want to wake you, but I had to — relieve myself. So I wandered off. Then I stopped for a smoke and picked a few apples for our breakfast. When I returned, you were gone. I went back to the house but you weren’t there. I assumed you’d left, and I went upstairs to crash in my old bedroom.”

“You assumed I’d left?”

“Yes.” He gazed at her steadily.

“I called your name, Gabriel! I shouted for you.”

“I didn’t hear you. I was hungover, and maybe I wandered a little too far away.”

“You didn’t smoke when you were with me,” she sounded skeptical.

“No, I didn’t. And I quit soon afterward.”

“Why didn’t you try to find me?”

Guilt clouded his eyes, and he looked away.

“My family woke me up, demanding that I deal with the aftermath of the night before. When I asked where Beatrice was, Richard told me I was delusional.”

“What about Rachel?”

“I left before she returned. She refused to speak to me for months.”

“Don’t lie to me, Gabriel. I brought your jacket back. I folded it and put it on top of the blanket and set it on the porch. That was a clue. And didn’t someone see my bike?”

“I don’t know what they saw. Grace gave me my jacket, and no one mentioned you or your name, not that I would have recognized it. It was as if you were a ghost.”

“How could you have thought it was a dream? You weren’t that drunk.”

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Julia watched the tendons stand out on his arms, rippling up and down.

Gabriel opened his eyes, but kept them fixed on the table. “Because I was hungover and confused, and I was strung out on coke.”

Slam.

That was the sound of Julia’s fairy tale crashing into the unyielding wall of reality. Her eyes widened, and she inhaled sharply.

“Didn’t Rachel ever tell you what precipitated the fight? Richard knew when he picked me up at the airport in Harrisburg that I was on something. He searched my room before dinner and found my stash. When he confronted me, I snapped.”

Julia closed her eyes and put her head in her hands.

He sat very still, waiting for her to speak.

“Cocaine,” she whispered.

Gabriel squirmed in his chair. “Yes.”

“I spent the night in the woods, alone, with a twenty-seven-year-old coke head who was strung out and drunk. What a stupid, stupid girl.”

He clenched his teeth. “Julianne, you are not  stupid. I’m the fuck up.

I should have known better than to lead you out there in my condition.”

She exhaled slowly and her shoulders began to shudder.

“Look at me, Julianne.”

She shook her head.

“I saw your father that morning.”

Julia peered over at him. “You did?”

“You know what it’s like to live in a small town. The gossip started when Richard brought Scott to the hospital and neither of them would explain how he got hurt. Your father caught wind of it and came over to see if he could help.”

“He never mentioned it.”

“Richard and Grace were embarrassed. I’m sure your father wanted to protect them from small town gossip. Since no one but you and I knew what happened between us…” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.

“Why didn’t you tell Rachel?”

“I was traumatized. And humiliated.”

Gabriel winced. He reached over to take her hand in his, his eyes burning into hers. “Don’t you remember what happened between us?”

Julia threw his hand back.

“Of course I remember! That’s the reason I’ve been so screwed up.

Sometimes I’d think back to that night and I’d believe what you said. I’d try to convince myself that you must have had a reason for leaving.

“Other times, all I could think about was how you abandoned me, and I’d have nightmares about being lost in the woods. But do you know what the sickest thing is? I hoped that you would come back. For years I hoped you’d show up on my doorstep and tell me you wanted me. That you meant what you’d said about being glad you’d found me. How pathetic is that?”

“That is not  pathetic. I agree that it looked like I abandoned you, but I swear I didn’t. And believe me, if I had thought for one moment that you were real and living in Selinsgrove, I would have shown up on your doorstep.”

He cleared his throat, and Julia felt the reverberation of his knee bouncing up and down underneath the table. “I am an addict. This is who I am. I have a need to control things and people, and that need will never go away.”

“Are you on something now?”

“Of course not! You think I’d do that do you?”

“If you’re an addict, you’re an addict. Whether I’m here or not makes no difference.”

“It makes a difference to me.”

“Addictive personalities can latch on to anything: drugs, alcohol, sex, people…what if you become addicted to me?”

“I am already addicted to you, Beatrice. Only you’re far more dangerous than cocaine.”

Julia’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

He reached over to take her hand again, stroking the veins that stood out against her pale, thin wrist. “I’m confessing to you now. I’m destructive.

I’m moody. I have a bad temper. Some of that has to do with my addiction and some of that has to do with my — past.

“Was it wrong of me to think so highly of you that my only explanation for your existence was that you were either the product of a desperate mind or the crown of God’s creation?”

His words and his face were so intense that Julia had to pull away. The combination of his voice and the feel of his long cool fingers stroking her veins…She was worried her skin would catch fire and she would disintegrate into a pile of ash. “Are you still doing drugs?”

“No.”

“Recreationally?”

“No. After my disgusting behavior in Selinsgrove, Grace convinced me to get help. I was planning to kill myself — I just needed some money to settle my affairs. My night with you changed all that. When they told me there was no one called Beatrice, I assumed you were a hallucination or an angel. And in either case, I thought someone, God perhaps, had shown mercy to me and sent you to save me. Lo seme di felicità messo de Dio nell’

anima ben posta.”

Julia closed her eyes at the sound of Dante’s words from the Convivio.

The seed of felicity sent by God into a well-disposed soul.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “Scott agreed not to press charges if I went into treatment immediately. So Richard drove me to Philadelphia that same day and checked me into a hospital. After I went through my initial detox, he took me back to Boston and put me in rehab so that I would be close to my…job.” He shifted in his chair.

Julia opened her eyes, a troubled look on her face.

“Why did you want to kill yourself, Gabriel?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know what would happen if I brought those old demons back, Beatrice.”

“Are you still suicidal?”

He cleared his throat. “No. Part of my depression was caused by the drugs. Part of it was caused by — other factors in my life that I have tried to deal with. But you know as well as I that a suicidal person is a person who has lost hope. I found my hope when I found you.”

His eyes blazed intensely, and Julia decided to change the subject.

“Your mother was an alcoholic?”

“Yes.”

“What about your father?”

“I don’t speak of him.”

“Rachel told me about the money.”

“That’s the only good thing that ever came out of him,” Gabriel growled.

“That’s not true,” Julia said quietly.