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LONDON, GREAT BRITAIN. 12TH MAY.
IT TAKES VALERIE SOME TIME to realise what had woken her out of the deep slumber. She had fallen asleep on her couch in the living room after a particular stressful day, waking up just now at the loud ringing of her phone.
Cursing under her breath, she rises and sprints towards the kitchen.
It says UNKNOWN NUMBER on the display and for a second she hesitates, before accepting the call. "Hello?" She says, voice uncertain. She desperately hopes that it's not her agent with more work.
There is a long pause and Valerie is about to hang up, when a familiar voice greets her. "How are you doing?"
His voice crushes her like a massive boulder, locking her into a frozen state against the wall. She can't move, she can't speak. Valerie feels like an absolute fool. How could I've ever believed that it would be simple to just hang up if it is him who speaks? she asks herself.
She realises then why she is so unprepared—after three weeks she had unconsciously assumed that Dacre wouldn't try to contact her. Perhaps the truth is that she'd been unsure whether she could cope, so she had avoided the possibility entirely. But she hadn't been expecting this. She hadn't been expecting him.
"Hello? Are you still there?" His voice springs from the phone once again, stunning her like a fierce gasp of freezing air. It is wonderfully familiar, but somehow foreign, beholding an unrecognizable edge. Yet, the sound surfaces divine images of what feels like a past life, constraining the girl down a path that would resolve with none other than misery.
Valerie sighs after some time, not knowing whether this is a good idea. Then again, she knows very well that it's an absolutely awful idea. "Alright, I suppose. Filming is keeping me from thinking too much," She breathes, already revealing more than she wanted to. "Why are you calling?"
The other side of the line is silent for a moment. "I'm honestly not sure. I just needed to hear your voice," Dacre murmurs. "And I want to explain it to you."
"There's nothing you can say to make it better," Valerie snaps. Does he truly think that I will just forget what happened? she wonders quietly.
"I know, I know. I just want to make sure that you don't ever think any of this is your fault—" He tries, but Valerie cuts him off.
"I don't. It wasn't me who cheated, was it?"
Valerie can hear his heavy breath through the line. "No. It was me," He sighs, sounding exhausted and tired. "You know how sorry I am."
"Not sorry enough, I bet. Not sorry enough for what I had to endure," She hisses. She wants him to know exactly how much he had hurt her. And she isn't planning on making this easy for him. "God, do you even know how humiliated I was? How hurt?"
The only thing that can be heard is his heavy breathing on the other line. She imagines him furrowing his eyebrows in distress, while he tries to find the right words to say and suddenly there are tears in her eyes.
Just before she wants to end the call, Dacre says something once more. "The regret is eating me alive. I loved you. I love you," He assures her and it makes everything easier for her. The knowledge that he had truly loved her, still does, makes her believe in what they had again. It had been real and good and worth it. No matter the pain.
"I know," She tells him quietly. "And the truth is that I've forgiven you."
There is a long silence between them, before Dacre opens his mouth. "So what about us?" He asks her.
Valerie doesn't know how to respond. She wishes for everything to have ended differently, but just like him, she cannot turn back the time, she cannot make things undone, no matter how much she wants to.
"I can never trust you again. Even if I forgive you, I can never forget." She remembers the first time they had met, so in awe of the other person, already half in love. It had been in the city where everything is possible and back then, Valerie had truly thought that it is. And so, she reminds him of the first days spent together. "But we will always have Paris."
