The Bona Fide Fraud - Chapter 31 Im Heartless

The rain didn’t let up.

They drove in damp clothes toward London and stopped at a pub to eat fried food.

Paolo pulled the car up to Gemma’s building. He didn’t kiss her but reached his hand out to hold hers. “I like you,” he said. “I thoughtI guess I made that clear already? But I thought I should say it.”

Gemma liked him back. She liked herself with him.

But she wasn’t herself with him. She didn’t know what it was, or even who it was, that Paolo liked.

Could be Will. Could be Gemma.

She wasn’t sure where to draw the line between them anymore. Gemma smelled of jasmine like Willow, Gemma spoke like Willow, Gemma loved the books Will loved. Those things were true. Gemma was an orphan like Will, a self-created person, a person with a mysterious past. So much of Willow was in Gemma, she felt, and so much of Gemma was in Willow.

But Paolo thought Paulina and Corey were her parents. He thought she’d been to college with poor dead Brooke Lannon. He thought she was Jewish and rich and owned a London flat. Those lies were part of what he liked. It was impossible to tell him the truth, and even if she did, he’d hate her for the lie.

“I can’t see you,” she told him.

“What?”

“I can’t see you. Like this. At all.” she said

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.” she replied

“Is there someone else? That you’re going out with? I could take a number or get in line or something.”

“No. Yes. No.”

“Which is it? Can I change your mind?”

“I’m not available.” She could tell him she had someone else, but she didn’t want to lie to him anymore.

“Why not?”

She opened the car door. “I have no heart.”

“Wait.”

“No.” she said

“Please wait.”

“I have to go.”

“Did you have a bad time? I mean, aside from the rain, no Stonehenge, no country house, no sheep? Aside from the fact that it was a day of disaster upon disaster?”

Gemma wanted to stay in the car. To touch his lips with her fingertips and to relax into being Will and to let the lies build up on each other.

But it would not do.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Paolo,” she snapped. She pushed open the car door and stepped into the downpour.