Julien's Book (21 page)

"You can use my phone if you want," Julien said.

"I'll grab my iPad," she said. "I want to go ahead and download it so I have it for the flight tomorrow."

Nadine tiptoed down the hallway to her old room to get her iPad. Then she ran back to her big sister's old room where Julien was
waiting. She sat on the edge of the bed, leaning into him. He'd readjusted and was on his side, and Nadine cozied up into him so he could see the screen from over her shoulder. She went to Amazon and typed in the name of the book. It was Julien's face on the cover plain as day. Nadine wasn't sure how she had herself convinced it wasn't him before.

"This one?"

"Yep," he said.

She pushed the button for one touch purchasing, and smiled when she got the message that it'd be ready to open in the Kindle app. Nadine pushed on the author's name, and followed the link to her bio. She remembered her instantly once she saw her picture. "I remember her," she said. "I didn't know she wrote the book you were talking about."

"I thought I told you that right when we first talked about it."

"
You probably did. I can't remember everything I've been told about this mysterious book, but I know that most of it seems a little kooky."

"It's
definitely a bit strange," he said. "I'm glad I'll be with you when you read it." As he said that, he had the distinct feeling that maybe in the air, over the ocean, on a nine hour flight wasn't the best time to read something that would probably seem a little surreal. He came really close to telling her she might better wait until she wasn't flying through the air to read it, but changed his mind, figuring he'd try to talk her out of it the next day.

They kissed for several minutes before they snuggled up next to each other in a position
where they were comfortable enough to fall asleep. They stayed there for a good, long while, just falling asleep in each other's arms. Julien was concentrating on his breathing as he dozed off.

Nadine must have thought he was asleep b
ecause she said, "I love you." It was a paper-thin whisper that almost floated away before it made it to Julien's ears, but he heard it. He knew from how quietly she'd said it that she didn't mean to be heard, so he smiled to himself, and went on pretending to sleep.

Chapter 22

Julien and Nadine spent the morning with her family. Her parents asked them about two hundred times if they were each okay to travel after everything that had happened the night before. Nadine's parents and sisters seemed to be more affected than Nadine was, and there was a general feeling of quiet discomfort in the air.

"We're both fine," Nadine assured
her sister as they sat in the kitchen together that morning. "We talked about it last night, and we're both just glad it's over."

"What
were you telling us? Something about a book," Pascal said.

Nadine looked around to make sure J
ulien wasn't able to hear them, although she wasn't sure why. "I'll see what it's all about on the way back to the states. I have it downloaded to my Kindle app."

"Are you s
ure you want to go back already? I mean, with everything that happened?" her sister said.

"That's one of the
main reasons
I'm looking forward to getting back home," she said.

Pascal visibly flinched when Nadine referred to Louisiana as home.

"Does mom know he's a fighter?" Pascal asked.

"I think she does," Nadine said, trying to remember. "Why?"

Pascal shrugged. "It can't be an easy life, Nadine. Watching someone you love get beat up."

Nadine wanted to say Julien would never get beat up, but she knew how ridiculous and na
ïve that was. "I'm okay with it," she said instead, "and, besides, it's a little early to make wedding plans."

"I see how you look at him. We all do."

Right then,
Julien came back into the room, and the girls didn't finish their conversation. In fact, they never got the chance to finish it. The morning passed in a blur, and before he knew what was happening, Julien was boarding a flight back to the states with Nadine. He was in row 23, and her assigned seat was in row 8. He mentioned it to the flight attendant when they first boarded, and she said she'd see if she could help them work something out.

Turns out, someone on Julien's row
would just as soon be on row eight, so he traded tickets with Nadine. This still left them separated by a few seats, but the flight attendant made swift work of switching row 23 around in a way that suited everyone. Julien had Nadine on his left side and the isle on his right. They thanked the kind attendant and everyone in the row who'd accommodated them, and settled in for the very long trip back to the states.

****

Nadine would look back on the flight from Paris to Atlanta as one of the most surreal, messed-up, experiences of her life. She was
utterly mind-fucked
by the book for five straight hours of her life, and by the time she finished reading it, she felt like a ticking time-bomb that could explode any second.

Julien had been sleeping for the past two hours, and for most of it,
she cried buckets of silent tears as she read. Julien said there'd been
similarities
between the two of them and the characters in the book, but the word
similar
wasn't even close to accurate.

Julien's character had the same name, same job, and same birthmark as the real Julien. Otherwise, the character Julien was a completely different guy than the real one.
His house, his car, his eyes, his last name—most of the stuff in the book about him was changed, making the Julien in the book seem like a stranger compared to the guy sitting next to her.

Nadine, however, was the
exact same person
as her character in the book, and she cried her eyes out as she read things about herself that no one else could ever know—things she
thought
but never said to anyone, things she'd never told anyone, much less this Shea Miller lady, whoever that was.

Everything
about Nadine's character was the same as the real girl—her job, her eyes, her hair, and her crazy ex-boyfriend who tried to kill her. Reading the book was enough to make Nadine feel a rush of anxiousness she could barely contain. She suddenly felt the oddest sensation of being trapped in a fictional world. Trapped into a fate that someone else had thought up.

She felt out of control of her own destiny, which was completely unacceptable.
It took Nadine a good thirty minutes to calm herself down after she read the last words of the book. For a moment there, she'd felt so overwhelmed she thought she might be having a panic attack. She told herself there was nothing medically anyone could do to help her, and for some reason that logic helped her work her way out of the overwhelming panic she was feeling.

Julien was sleeping soundly, and even though she really wanted to go to the restroom for a moment alone, she didn't dare, for fear that she'd wake him.
She ever so gingerly took a notebook from the bag where she kept her laptop. She was moving like a sloth in an effort to make sure Julien stayed asleep. The well-dressed man on the other side of her looked at her inquisitively at the amount of care she was taking not to move. It took her at least three minutes to get out the notebook and situate it on her lap. Julien shifted slightly at one point, but she stayed focused, and he went back to sleep.

She began writing a letter that would take her the next hour. It was probably one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but she had no other choice. The overwhelming panic she was feeling
disappeared once she decided to write the letter, and following through with it was really the only option. It was no wonder he hadn't let her read that book in the first place. He knew what a mind-fuck it would be to have your shooting and subsequent coma described in detail. She sat there, blinking away her tears and trying not to make a sound. The whole thing was just too much to handle. She couldn't even bring to mind all the things that lined up with herself and the girl in the book. There were too many to remember. It was scary and overwhelming, and part of her thought she might be part of some elaborate game or trick that someone had set up to teach her some kind of lesson—like everyone in her life was part of the scheme. She had thoughts like that the whole time she composed the letter.

She stuck the folded paper
s in the front pocket of his bag, but she didn't have time to put up her notebook before he stirred and opened his eyes. He stretched his arms out in front of him, and Nadine watched miserably as his gorgeous, muscular arms flexed before falling at his side again.

"Whatcha doing?"
Julien nodded at the notebook in Nadine's lap, and her head jerked down guiltily to make sure there was no evidence of the letter anywhere.

"It
, I was, uh, just, how do you say… doodling."

Julien looked down at the empty page, but didn’t say anything. "You okay?"

"Of course, why do you ask?"

Julien st
udied her face, thinking he saw the traces of tears. "Did you read the book?" he asked.

She wanted to burst out crying right there. Her eyes got big as she bit the inside of her cheek, hoping the pain would distract her from the tears.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes," she lied, "I've just been waiting for you to wake up so I can use the toilet. She made a playful expression to hide the way her face wanted to contort
in agony. The emotions were overwhelming, and at that moment, she could either run to the restroom or bust out in tears right there.

"I'll be right back," she said. She was smiling and hoped it was convincing, but feared it probably wasn't.
She didn't have to pee at all. She just went to the restroom, locked the door behind her and stared into the mirror for five minutes. That book was a fictional nightmare, and she wouldn't feel like she could
breathe
again until she escaped its shadow. The only problem was that there was a very
real
guy out there waiting for her. A guy she was going to miss terribly. She'd already gotten attached to the idea of being with Julien, and her heart ached at the thought of losing him. There was just no other way. She made herself leave the restroom even though she wasn't quite ready to head back to her seat.

"You good?"
Julien asked as he stood up to let her slide past him into the row.

"
I just had to pee really bad," she lied.

They settled into their seats again.

"I can't believe how long I slept," Julien said.

Nadine shrugged casually, "Sleep is good to help you waste the time," she said. She faked a yawn.
"I was actually going to take a little nap myself."

Julien looked at her again. "You sure you're okay? I'm sure the book was a bit much to take in and I just wanted you to know you could talk to me about it."

No matter how hard she tried, and really, she
did
try, she could not hold the tears back. The freaking things fell from her eyes as if a dam had burst. It was humiliating, and she collapsed into his arms to avoid anyone else seeing her in that state.

"I know, I know," he said, rubbing the back of her head
as the tears fell from her eyes. "I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't keep it from you any longer. I didn't want to keep it from you
at all
, but by the time I found out there was a Pierre, I knew telling you would make you live in fear. I'm sorry. I thought I told you enough last night so that it wouldn't be a total shocker."

"
I thought you were joking last night, and calling it a
total shocker
is the understatement of the year, Julien." She was trying to regulate her breathing, so she whispered slowly. She didn't know what to say. She hadn't meant to talk to Julien about it before she started crying, but once the waterworks started, she had no choice. "It's so messed up," she whispered in between tiny hiccups of air.

"I know, but everything's okay now. Don't you see?" His voice as soft and comforting, and the sound of it broke her heart.

She nodded her agreement to
everything being okay
even though she knew in her heart that things were
far
from freaking okay. Her body cooperated with her emotions and went into shutdown mode. She passed out in his arms and slept for the next three hours. By the time she woke up, they were within two hours of Atlanta.

The book was the first thing she thought of when she
regained consciousness, but she felt better about the whole situation in general. She was happy with her decision, and knew it was the only choice she'd be able to live with. Before she fell asleep, she'd put the letter into Julien's bag. She intentionally put it into a pocket on the very front, one she'd never seen him get into. She wanted him to find the letter when he got home, and she hadn't really thought about the fact that he might go rummaging in his things while he was still on the plane. He might have read it when she was sleeping.
Oh, shit, what if he read it while she was sleeping?
She looked at him cheerfully, gauging his mood.

"That nap did you some good," Julien said.

Nadine reminded herself to tone down the enthusiasm. "Yeah, I needed that," she said, stretching.

"We're almost home."

"Really?" Nadine suddenly got nervous about executing her plan.

"Less than two hours I think."

"I'll have to run to my gate, so I guess we'll have to just split up right when we get off," Nadine said.

"I can walk with you," Julien said. "I'm sure we'll be leaving from the same terminal, and even if we're not,
I'll have two hours after you leave to find mine."

"Sounds perfect," she said.

Nadine went through the motions of talking to Julien, and spent the remainder of the flight in a surreal haze that felt a little like she was outside of her body, watching herself interact rather than participating. She was dumbfounded every time a scene from the book flashed through her mind, which was pretty much constantly. She was using every last ounce of acting skill she had to make it through the flight, and she hoped against hope she would be able to continue to seem unaffected. Every once in a while, Julien would stop and study her face for a second, as if he wanted to ask if she was okay, but each time, she changed the subject. She was exhausted from the charade by the time they made it to Atlanta.

Julien walked her to her gate, and sat with her until they called the first set of passengers to board. Nadine gave Julien a kiss on the cheek and went to stand in line to board even though she was supposed to be in the third group.

"I'll text you later to let you know when I make it home," he said.

"Good," she said. "I was going to tell you to do that."

Julien put a chaste kiss on her mouth. "See you at home."

"Okay," she said, smiling.

Julien walked away, headed for a different terminal and Nadine waited until he was a good bit ahead of her before she got out of the line. She put the boarding ticket she'd been holding in her back pocket and strapped her messenger bag over her shoulder. She kept Julien in sight until he veered off down a hallway to the right. She blinked away a tear at the sight of him walking away as she started walking.