Chapter 23: One Bag

Coralie's POV

Brynn stood at the departures curb at Sea-Tac with one suitcase.

It was the same curb where she had once watched me pick up my bag and walk to the taxi line.

She wore a plain gray coat and no pearl-pink anything, and her hair was tied back.

She looked younger, and tired, and for the first time she looked like someone I might have shared a room with.

Winslow had parked at a distance and stayed in the car.

I had asked him to.

"You came," said Brynn.

"Dalton's secretary said you asked twice."

"I didn't think you would."

"Neither did I."

A man in a vest pushed a cart of luggage between us, and we waited until he passed.

"I won't say sorry," said Brynn. "You'd know it was for the room."

"Yes."

"I'll say what's true, and you can do what you like with it."

I waited.

"When my mother told me, I was eighteen, and she was dying, and the first thing I thought was not about you."

"It was about Mrs. Livingstone's hand. How she held mine when I had a fever. And I thought, if I say it, she'll never hold it again."

"She would have," I said.

"You don't know that."

"I do. I've watched her for weeks. She'd have held it anyway."

Brynn's face crumpled and she pressed her lips together until it passed.

"I'd have been a good sister to you," she said. "If I'd been brave."

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