"I suppose we did," Beth said, her voice calm—too calm. The kind of calm you use when holding back either tears or a thousand unspoken questions.
Leon groaned inwardly, even as a flicker of relief curled inside him. Well done, idiot, he thought. You wrote a note saying you'd return 'soon' and then vanished into thin air into a birthday party in Paris. And now you're standing in a London park eating ice cream like a tourist in hiding.
The truth was—he hadn't expected to see her again. He hadn't expected anything, really. That was the problem with living the way he did: things were beautiful, immediate, and then gone. He vanished from places the way perfume disappears—slowly, and then all at once.
So, in the absence of a plan, he fell back on what Sanlu and Aglaya had taught him—not in words, but in behavior: When in doubt, perform confidence.
Sanlu once declared on stage that lungs were "just throats with emotion," and half the audience had laughed, the other half Googled it.
Aglaya had claimed that time was a bourgeois illusion and walked off mid-performance to eat a tangerine.
Be confident, they said in their chaos, even if you're dreadfully wrong.
So Leon smiled.
Not the practiced, red-carpet smile. Not the cold grin he gave to paparazzi. But something slightly absurd, vaguely apologetic, and—if only for a flicker—genuine.
"I suppose," he said softly, "that you've found out about my little lie."
He paused, reading her face.
"You're not angry with me, I hope?"
Beth didn't speak. Not yet.
Leon stepped forward slightly, still holding the melting cone like it was part of the act.
"You see… I just longed to be loved not for being Leon Troy, but for being me."
He shrugged, a little helpless, a little theatrical. "But I see that I was dreadfully wrong about how that sort of thing works now."
The silence hung between them.
Heavy with a thousand possible futures.
"You do forgive me, don't you?" Leon asked, his voice dropping into something softer—an almost pleading note, touched with that unmistakable liquid cadence he used when he was no longer acting, or perhaps, when he was acting perfectly.
It wrapped around the words like silk: low, smooth, uncertain beneath its polish.
Beth felt it in her chest before she understood it in her mind.
This was not the Leon Troy of tabloids and premiers. Not the boy who vanished behind masks and movie roles, nor even the boy who once stood on a cliff in Reine and nearly kissed her under the midnight sun.
This was a Leon who was—if not bare, then at least momentarily unarmed.
And for a second, the world seemed to narrow down to the two of them, the park suspended around them like a still from a film.
Beth looked up at him, searching his face—what little of it wasn't shaded by doubt or self-styled mystery. His hand, still holding the ice cream, was trembling ever so slightly.
She didn't speak.
But she didn't walk away either.
And that, for now, was something.
"Yeah," Beth said, her voice quiet but clear. "I forgive you."
She paused. The words settled like the stillness after a storm.
"…But I don't forget."
Leon stilled for a heartbeat. Then—
He beamed.
Not the polite actor's smile. Not the practiced smirk. But something wide, radiant—boyish, almost painfully real. His whole face seemed to light up with a kind of inner, impossible spring, as though something had thawed inside him he didn't know was frozen.
But even so, his tone—when he spoke—remained shaded in melancholy, soft-edged, and solemn.
"I don't expect you to forget," he said, eyes holding hers with rare steadiness. "And I don't deserve to have your trust. Or your respect."
There was no charm in it. No performative sorrow. Just honesty, dropped like a fragile truth between them.
And in that moment, Beth saw it.
The strange, tangled boy behind Leon Troy.
And she didn't look away.
"Well," said Leon, his voice smoothing out into something hopeful, hesitant. He shifted slightly on his feet, the melting ice cream now an afterthought, the park noise a distant blur behind the moment unfolding between them. He met her eyes again—no mask now, no sunglasses, no pretense.
"I would like to see you more often," he said, quiet but certain.
Then, a small smile—tentative, almost self-mocking.
"And I promise," he added, "that I won't ghost you. Not on any account."
Beth arched an eyebrow, the trace of a smile tugging at her lips despite herself. "That's a low bar, Leon."
"I know," he said, grinning sheepishly. "But I've learned not to trip over it."
She looked at him—really looked. The chaos, the charm, the fractured sincerity. And for the first time, it didn't feel like she was staring at a cliff edge she might fall from.
It felt like he might be trying—awkwardly, messily—to build something on solid ground.
And that, maybe, was enough to say yes. Not to everything.
But to begin again.
"Give me your number," Leon said, voice dipping into a gentle confidence, no longer performative—just him, steady and slightly breathless. "And I'll give you mine."
He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen already smudged from a thousand past exchanges, a thousand names Beth would never ask about.
But right now, it was blank. A fresh contact page open, waiting.
He held it out toward her, eyes warm but quiet, as though trying not to spook whatever delicate thing this was between them.
Beth hesitated.
Just a second.
Then she took the phone. Typed in her number.
Handed it back.
Leon glanced down, smiling. "Beth," he said softly, like trying the name for the first time. "No fake names this time?"
"No aliases," she replied, deadpan. "You?"
He handed her his phone without hesitation. "Real number. No assistants. No burner phones. No disappearing."
She took it, typed slowly.
And when she handed it back, their fingers brushed—not by accident.
A moment passed.
Then another.
And the world kept turning. But somehow, in the quiet beneath the trees, it felt like something had just started.
That summer unfolded like a film with no script—just light, breath, and the city's warm hum between them.
Leon and Beth slipped into each other's days with a kind of quiet inevitability. There were no grand declarations, no paparazzi flashes—just two people trying to exist, honestly, in a world that rarely allowed honesty.
They walked.
That's what they did most of all.
London in summer was a soft miracle: the Thames glinting like it carried secrets, the old buildings worn with stories, the narrow side streets blooming with lavender and cigarette smoke. Leon, in a faded cap and inconspicuous dark jacket, kept his head low when crowds thickened, but when it was just them—on empty paths in Regent's Park or the back lanes of Soho—he looked up. Always at her.
He told her things slowly. Carefully. Not in rehearsed monologues but in half-thoughts spilled between coffee stops and bookshop steps.
She learned he liked train stations at dusk. That he hated elevators but loved the silence of libraries. That he carried a small notebook but rarely wrote in it—afraid, he said, of seeing his thoughts too clearly.
Beth shared less, but deeper. She talked about Oxford skies and how her mother never let her wear lipstick. About Jefrey's calmness, Amanda's fire, the ache of being between people who knew what they wanted and feeling like she was still looking for a map.
They argued once, outside the Tate.
He had said something careless about fame being a burden.
She had said, flatly, "It's not a burden to be loved by strangers."
He apologized. Not with words, but with silence that lasted until the sun sank red behind the gallery. Then he turned to her and said, "You're the first person who's ever said that to me and meant it."
They kissed for the first time in that moment.
Not cinematic. Not planned. Just quiet. Certain. Her hand on his collar. His hand trembling slightly against her jaw. The world didn't stop—but it slowed.
There were late nights spent sprawled on his living room floor, watching films he hated just to make her laugh. Mornings where they shared breakfast silently, elbows brushing, the city waking up around them.
He asked nothing of her except presence.
She asked nothing of him except truth.
And somewhere in the warm blur of July, Beth realized: she still remembered what it felt like to wait for someone.
But now—Leon was showing up. Not just arriving. Staying.
And that was its own kind of miracle.
It was a warm, slow afternoon in Helena's hospital room. The air was filled with the low hum of machines and the faint scent of antiseptic. Outside, the London sky hovered between blue and grey, the sort of weather that couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be—like so many things in their lives lately.
Helena dozed lightly, her breathing steady, her hand resting in Amanda's.
Amanda scrolled through her phone in her free hand, catching up on the outside world—celebrity news, university gossip, distractions to soften the weight of hours spent in quiet vigil.
Then she paused. Her eyebrows lifted slightly.
She glanced at Beth, who was seated by the window with a book open in her lap, though her eyes hadn't moved from the same page in ten minutes.
"Hey," Amanda said casually, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Helena. "The internet says Leon Troy and Barbara broke up."
Beth didn't move.
The words hovered in the air, innocent on the surface—but edged with quiet meaning.
Beth looked up slowly, her face unreadable.
"Oh?" she said, too carefully.
Amanda tilted her head, studying her sister. "It's everywhere. One of those celebrity Instagram trackers says they haven't been seen together in weeks. No sightings in Paris. No comments. No birthday posts. Nothing."
She showed Beth the screen—grainy paparazzi photos, a headline that read "Leon Troy and Barbara Over? Inside the Summer Split", the article filled with speculation, unnamed sources, and vague statements about "creative differences" and "distance."
Beth looked at it for a moment, then turned her gaze back to the window.
She didn't say anything.
Amanda watched her quietly. Then added, more gently, "You're not just a holiday girl, you know."
Beth gave a faint, almost imperceptible smile. But her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of her book.
And outside, the London sky stayed undecided.
It was late afternoon in Helena's hospital room, the kind of still hour where the light through the blinds falls in pale slats across the white bed linens, and the air hums with the low rhythm of machines, footsteps, and quiet breath.
Helena was asleep, her hand resting lightly in Amanda's. Beth sat in the chair by the window, a sketchpad balanced on her knee, pencil moving idly.
Amanda glanced down at her phone—an early-model Blackberry, with a sluggish internet connection and a screen barely big enough to read headlines. She was scrolling without much purpose when her eyes caught something familiar. She stared. Blinked. Then turned the screen toward Beth.
"Well," Amanda said dryly, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Helena, "the internet says Leon Troy has broken up with Barbara."
Beth's pencil paused.
She looked up slowly, her eyes unreadable, but her heart did something—tightened? Sank? Fluttered? She couldn't tell.
Amanda leaned back in her chair with that particular mix of judgment and amusement only an older sister could perfect. "Apparently it happened last week. Statement through her agent. Very dignified. Something about 'growing in different directions' and 'respect.' Classic."
Beth stared at her sketchbook.
Amanda eyed her. "You didn't know?"
Beth shook her head. "He didn't tell me."
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "And you two have been playing house across London for how many weeks now?"
Beth didn't answer.
There was a long silence. Helena stirred in her sleep, murmuring something faint and unintelligible.
Finally, Amanda sighed. "Just… be careful, Beth."
"I am," Beth said, but too quickly.
Amanda didn't argue.
She didn't need to.