Chapter 0257


    To my chagrin, the first photograph in the book is one of Kent with his arm wrapped around Natalia’s shoulders, grinning at the


    camera while Natalia crosses her arms and gives the camera saucy look.


    But as | look closer at it, | can’t help but smile andugh a little. Because Kent looks so much like Daniel — so much so that if you


    hadn''t told me any better, I’d have said that that was Daniel in the photograph wearing a nnel shirt with very 90''s floppy hair.


    My eyes run over Kent''s face, his figure, and | have to bite my lip a little at the sight of him. He just looks so...young, so happy. |


    mean honestly, it’s not like | really think of Kent as old now — he’s still crazy hot and in incredible shape. But in this picture he’s


    what...sixteen? Christ, he’s younger than | am now.


    | begin to flip through the album, smiling more at the vintage fashions, the shots of Kent and Natalia in the Italian countryside,


    then lounging around in someone’s bedroom, even eating gto in a city somewhere — maybe Rome? | linger particrly on the


    few close-up shots of Kent''s face, clearly taken by an admirer, when | realize that this album actually doesn’t have any pictures


    of Lenai in it. And that’s when | realize that it’s her album because...she took the pictures.


    And | go still, a little bit, realizing that this is so much more of a glimpse into her life — into Daniel''s mother’s life, than it is to


    Kent''s or Natalia’s. And that feels just so...incredibly intimate, to be seeing Kent through his wife’s eyes before she was even his


    wife...that | have to close the book.


    | let it rest a moment on myp and then, on impulse, | set it quickly aside. Like it will burn me, or curse me, or something — |


    don’t know.


    | pick up my ss of wine and sit quietly in the chair for a long time, trying to parse through my emotions.


    And I’m shocked, and a little scared, to find that the one that keeps rising to the top is...jealousy.


    Jealous. I’m jealous of Lenai. | want to be the one who watched Kent grow up, who got to go on his first adventures with him,


    who took photos of him falling asleep on a train in the Italian countryside. | want to be the one who wondered what kind of man


    he''d turn out to be.


    And quite suddenly I’m horribly, bitterly jealous of this woman. Which | know is ridiculous because she’s dead — she’s been dead


    for a long time, and | know Kent has moved on from her.


    But she got so many wonderful moments with him — moments I''ll never have.


    And | get what...a few stolen nights tucked away in his bedroom in secret? | mean, has he ever even touched me outside, in the


    light of day?


    I curl up then, in my chair, tucking my face into my hands,pletely overwhelmed by the realization that the best I’m ever going


    to get in Kent’s heart is second ce.


    And I’m absolutely terrified by the realization that | want to be first. | want to mean more to him — | want to mean the most.


    Because maybe that’s what he is to...


    But no. | shut down the thought, making my mind turn to other things. My brain trips over itself in its attempt to find something


    new to mull over, and — cruelly — it turns to Ivan. To what he said yesterday - that he offered me everything, and I''d picked an old,


    dead man over him. Someone who will never, ever love me.


    And suddenly | feel just...horribly stupid.Content rights by N?velDr//ama.Org.