A Thousand Pieces of You

The train slides back into motion, and everyone starts talking or listening to music; the chatter surrounds us, giving us privacy again. Finally Paul says, “What about you and Theo? I thought he was the one who—well. I thought he was the one.”

I care about Theo. There’s no denying that, no setting it aside easily. But whatever it is I feel for him—it’s not what I feel for Paul. “No. Not Theo.”

I fell in love with one Paul. I fell in love with his unchanging soul. Does that mean I fell in love with every Paul, everywhere?

Paul rushes to fill the silence, words tumbling over one another, as if he’d held them back for so long that he can’t last one second more. “I know I’m not—I’ve never been—” He stares down at his own broad hands on his duffel bag. “I’m not good with words. I never know the right thing to say, because with you—every time we talk I seem to get it wrong.”

“You don’t always get it wrong.”

He shakes his head slightly, the smile on his face rueful. “I’m not the Paul from Russia. I can’t speak the way he did. I wish I could.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Everything would be so much simpler if I were sure that I only cared for Lieutenant Markov. But since when did love become simple? “That time you watched me paint, and you told me I always painted the truth—you got that right. Really right.”

Paul’s smile softens, like he’s starting to believe. “You said you don’t know where Lieutenant Markov stops and I begin.”

I nod as I hug myself, and curl down into my seat.

“I remember being a part of him.” His voice is low, and soft. I lift my eyes to his. It feels both like it’s hard to meet his gaze and like I could never look away. “I know we both liked the way you look for beauty in every person. Every moment. He wished he could be funny like you, sure of your words, and I do too. We both daydreamed about kissing you against a wall. Neither of us thought we ever had a chance with anyone as amazing as you. We would both do anything, give up anything, to keep you safe.”

By now my vision has blurred with tears. Paul must see that in my eyes, and he hesitates—like he feels guilty for upsetting me. But he keeps going.

“Lieutenant Markov and I are not the same man,” he says. “Nobody knows that better than I do. But we’re not completely different, either. The one way we were most alike was—was how we felt about you.”

The train rattles into its last stop, at the airport. Everyone starts hauling their bags out, and I wipe my cheeks, then help Paul maneuver his duffel through the doors. Instead of following the crowd forward, though, he lingers on the dimly lit platform, and I know it’s because he wants to tell me goodbye while we’re alone.

As soon as everyone else is farther ahead, I say, “Paul—”

“I love you.”

It makes me gasp. Not in surprise—by now I knew, I knew that as surely as I knew anything in the world. But it still feels like going through the rapids, over a waterfall, falling into the roar.

He keeps going, as if afraid to trust my reaction. “I told myself it didn’t matter if I never got to be with you. It was enough just to love you. When you were in danger, I needed you to be safe. You don’t owe me anything for that. You don’t have to say—to pretend—”

I reach out and press two fingers to his mouth. As overwhelmed as I am right now, I have to touch him. I have to know.

Paul breathes out sharply, like a man struck. He pulls me close, his enormous hands cradling my face as though I were fragile and delicate. Like a little dove. Slowly Paul lowers his face to mine, nuzzling my temple, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth. I breathe in the scent of his skin as I wrap my fingers around his forearms, guiding him gently, gently down.

Of course I’ve always known Paul was a big man, so much taller than me, and yet I never realized how he could wrap himself around me. How he could enclose me here in the darkness and become my whole world.

He brushes the first kiss against my cheekbone. The touch is so soft, even tentative—but the power of the emotion behind it overcomes me, bears me down more surely than force ever could. I tilt my head back, and Paul responds to the invitation by kissing the hollow of my throat, then finding the place on my neck where my pulse is pounding hardest. When he pulls me against his chest, I can feel his heart beating equally fast. We’re both so scared, yet neither of us wants to pull away.

Paul scrapes his teeth along my throat. The sharp edge between pain and pleasure makes me cry out in the instant before he silences me with his kiss.

Our lips part. I feel his tongue brush against mine as we breathe each other in. The world is turning upside down. I clutch at his T-shirt as my hands become fists. His broad hands cradle me at the waist, and all I can think is that this is perfect, absolutely perfect, just like . . .

Just like the way the other Paul kissed me in Russia.

It ought to reassure me. Instead it horrifies me. The man I loved died two days ago, and now I’m in someone else’s arms—except I don’t even know if this counts as someone else—

I turn my head from Paul, breaking the kiss. “Stop,” I whisper. “Please, stop.”

Paul stops immediately, though his arms remain around me. “Marguerite? What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing.” My voice trembles. “I feel like I’m being unfaithful. Which is completely crazy, but I don’t—I can’t.”