With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Guilt and shame flooded into her bloodstream, her heart thudding painfully in her chest.

Vivienne shook her head. “This is what’s wrong with you,” she said, firmness obvious in her tone, wanting Reini to understand what she was about to say. “You’re too focused on the future and you’re too busy running away from the past that you never stopped to think about what path you’re heading on.”

Reini uncrossed her arms and forcibly put them at her sides, unclenching her fists as she did so. “What do you mean?”

Vivienne shook her head and looked beyond Reini. Reini knew without a doubt that Vivienne was seeing something else, something of another time and place. Vivienne sighed and directed her gaze back to Reini, her eyes conveying something akin to sadness.

“You were always the brain in your friendship,” said Vivienne, looking away again as she resumed her walk. Reini walked once more, careful not to breach Vivienne’s personal space.

Vivienne’s gaze was, once again, far away. “Eena had always been the heart and Greg had always been the will. You have always been the brain. And yet, what cruel irony that with the brains you have, you can’t seem to see just what path you’re on. Reini,” she said, pausing her walk, looking at the woman beside her, “you’re the third one to go down this road and you don’t even see it.”

Reini blinked, confused.

Vivienne looked up, a smile slowly making its way on her face. “Reini, look up.”

Reini allowed her gaze to move up and saw the Eiffel tower in all its splendid beauty. “The Eiffel tower,” she breathed out.

Vivienne nodded, her gaze still on the magnificent architecture. “There are no people in line to get to the tower today,” she said as if it was only then that she realized that fact, as if she expected Reini to realize that too.

Reini nodded. “I had wondered about that.”

Vivienne smiled brightly, almost but not quite reaching her eyes. “I know someone who owed me a favor. It’s hard to get the park to ourselves in the morning, harder still at night.”

Reini didn’t know why she was surprised. She should have expected it, knowing just how far Vivienne’s power extended. “Should I feel special?” she said after a minute of just looking at the place where two years ago, she had left something dear to her heart.

Vivienne smirked, shaking her head. “You better not.”

A moment, and then Vivienne turned to look at Reini. “You’re here because you’re looking for something.”

Reini nodded. “Yes, the truth.”

Vivienne nodded. “Correct, but it’s not just the truth that you’re looking for. You’re looking for explanations, for acceptance, and even if you don’t know it, you’re looking for this,” she said, her right hand making its way out of her pocket, a small velvet box clutched tightly inside her fist.

Reini eyebrow rose as she took the box. “What is this?”

Vivienne smiled gently at her, like a mother would at her child’s antics. “Open it.”

Reini cautiously opened the box and stared. Her eyes widened, her jaw went slack, and for a few seconds, nothing else existed but the box and the object inside it.

Reini found nothing she wanted to say. Something was lodged up her throat, and her voice was uncooperative. “Oh wow,” she breathed out after a few more seconds, afraid of doing anything more than looking at it for fear that it would disappear.