"I met someone at a restaurant in Nice, or was it Antibes? Never mind. It was spring, I saw him sitting alone at another table and somehow we started talking. He was from California but felt he needed to get away as often as possible, just like us. I told him about you. No, I told him about a girl that was coming to spend the summer with me. I told him she was from New York and had a heart as black as midnight.
I described little things I loved about her, how she bites her nails when she's nervous and only wears matching light colored underwear regardless of the season. I told him about the Rose Bar at Gramercy and her morbid obsession with butterflies.
He listened without asking questions, somehow I got the feeling he knew this restless girl I was talking about. I got the feeling he had met you, that he had spent a great deal of his life close to you and knew precisely what I was going to say next. That he had seen that exact same depth in your eyes, those eyes I get so hopelessly lost in whenever I try to understand what you're daydreaming of.
We spoke for an hour, I spoke for an hour and he listened. He did this thing with his fingertips, like he was drawing something on the tablecloth. Or writing perhaps. Suddenly he excused himself and got up, told me it was very nice to meet me and started to walk away. I wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't for his last words, but they've been echoing like thunder in my sleep ever since you came here. I can't stop thinking about it and I'm afraid I'll go mad if I don't tell you. Or ask you.
He was walking away when he stopped, hand in his pocket, running the other hand through his hair as if deciding whether to turn around or not. He did, and he said: 'Tell her I forgave her a long time ago'.
With all the love I feel for you now, with every beat of my broken heart I ask you: what did you do to him?"
What did you do to him, Avy? What did you do to Carl in that abandoned house?
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