But her fiancé reassured her at least on the first point.
"You know very well that even though everything will come back, and everything will come back, nothing will change between us, least of all my feelings. And you know what!" he exclaimed as if about to announce some big news. "I've..."
But he couldn't finish his sentence as triumphant music rang out, announcing the arrival of the cake, a five-tiered wonder of inordinate size covered in fruit and chocolate.
"It's sure to be a delight, although most of it will end up in the garbage can. How could we ever finish this," Nathan remarked, tightening his possessive embrace around his companion's willing body.
"C'est la vie." she argued with an air that was falsely casual but as sorry as her love for the cake's fate.
"Cake huh..." murmured Nicky as he squinted his eyes, staring at the cake as if seeing another. He felt as if he were remembering something again. His forgetfulness was clearly wearing off. Then Crystal remembered that he was about to tell them something, or more precisely reveal something before being interrupted by the pompous arrival of the cake, and she was convinced that it was very important, even vitally important. She didn't know where such certainty came from, but it was there, rooted in her. She'd ask him what it was later. She wouldn't forget, that's for sure.
"Why five floors?" someone asked Karl, standing in the middle of the room with his enormous sweet masterpiece, some of whose fruit he'd already pecked.
"Because it's the favorite number of a person who..."
"...who means a lot to you?" finished another guest seeing that their host interrupted. He only replied with a smile.
"The same favorite number as this person's." murmured Nicky again, smiling painfully.
Crystal would have liked to ask him who he was talking about, but Karl began a short speech, of thanks a little spiked here and there with perfectly adequate and very comic jokes that made the guests laugh without any embarrassment nor ulterior motive.
Then came the cutting of the cake, the applause, the sharing of the work of art, which most of the guests were unable to finish, and finally their departure.
It was late, almost midnight. The party had been a great success. A good time had been had by all. Only a dozen people remained, including the Leocky couple. Nathan and Crystal looked at each other and desire flared between them, so with an unspoken agreement, full of promise, they approached Karl, who was quietly chatting with his big brother, to tell him in turn that they were leaving.
"Thanks Uncle Karl, that party was incredible. Can't wait for the next one!" expressed his nephew, holding out his hand, which his uncle shook warmly - at least, that's what Crystal wanted to believe.
"Let's wish then that we're all still here for the next anniversary and that I'm still rich."
They burst out laughing.
Nathan turned to his father.
"Are you leaving with us or..."
"I'll stay a little longer." he quipped, putting a tender arm around his younger brother's shoulders, who smiled more warmly than he had with his nephew.
"So... "but we'll never know what Nathan meant because Karl's face metamorphosed completely, and a smile the likes of which they'd never seen appeared on his lips, and all because of something, no someone he saw behind them. It must have been a newcomer, for none of the people present elicited such a reaction from him. Crystal wanted to turn around to see the person capable of revealing this Karl to the world, but a broken glass caught her eye first, then it was Leonie's, who now looked at the newcomer with a pale, frightening face as if she were seeing a revenant, and Nicky, her Nicky who seemed no longer to be, and she was right to think so.
But she forgot everything, everything and everyone, even her love, when she finally turned around to lay eyes on this person who provoked unprecedented reactions in everyone around her.
Crystal would never forget this moment either. They were right, those philosophers, scholars and smooth talkers, life's only constancy was its unpredictability. And she'd been wrong, it wasn't that she'd finally and definitively stopped loving Nicky, no, she'd simply got the wrong person. The real, genuine, her Nicky, her first and unforgettable love had just arrived and was now heading straight for her, no, straight for Karl, who did the same and took him in his arms for a long, deep embrace.
"I thought you weren't coming," Karl said, such emotion in his voice and all over his face. An emotion almost unbearable, almost equaling Crystal's. But it didn't equal her.
"And miss this wonderful party, which I see is almost over. And besides, I forgot your present at home."
"I knew you were an asshole."
The same face, the same voice as the other, but so different too. And she wasn't talking about the glasses, which were very stylish and looked good on him, she had to admit. This person Crystal had, at some point in her life, loved more than anything.
And her own voice had fallen silent, as if never to return.
"Nicky," it was Leonie's fiancé, still pale as a corpse, who called her first.
Nicky turned to him and exclaimed.
"Ronnie! What are you doing here?"
"Nicky," the latter could only repeat. Then the newcomer knew something was wrong.
"Are you all right?" he inquired, coming over to give him a hug, but Karl intervened, clearing up a lot of things.
"So that's your twin brother. Ronald Specter."
"It's so obvious. You wouldn't think you'd be so much alike just by being brothers, like you and James."
"Half-brother."
"If you say so."
"And he's with your fiancée," Uncle Karl pointed out meaningfully.
"Former fiancée." clarified the real Nicky in turn with a falsely serious air. "But that's life. We're twins, so we're bound to have the same tastes."
"Not at all! You don't have to!"
"You don't have a twin, what do you know?"
"Wait!" decided Nathan's father this time, intervening with grand gestures.
"You're twins!" he wanted to confirm, looking at Nicky and his brother in turn. Nicky didn't bother to answer, just took out a pack of cigarettes. Ronald did for them.
"Yes," he confirmed almost inaudibly.
Leonie faced her fiancé.
"You've got your memory back!"
Ronnie raised his hands to his head.
"Yes, I remember everything now."
Nicky frowned with concern.
"Ronnie, are you all right? What's the matter with you?"
The latter raised his head and turned an accusing gaze on him, blazing with rage.
"An accident, and you weren't there. At no time were you there, not while I was in a coma, not when I woke up with no memory and not later."
"Ronnie..."
"You were gone for seven years! Seven long years! What have you been doing all this time."
By way of reply, Nicky supported his brother's emotionally charged gaze before shrugging.
"Better you never know."