Chapter 22: The Days I Waited

Caleb's POV

Josie held the bowl in her lap the whole drive to Aspen.

She did not say a word, and I did not make her.

My mother had left the lodge porch light on and a note on the kitchen table: Take the middle room. Nobody will wake you.

Josie carried the bowl around the side of the house to the flat gray rock beside the hot springs.

I followed with a flashlight.

She stood over the rock for a while.

"Is it loud?" she said.

"It will be."

"Tell me to go in. I'll go in."

"Break it," I said.

She lifted it above her head and threw it down.

The crack went out across the dark like a rifle shot.

I flinched all the way to my teeth.

Pieces of blue and cream bounced away across the stone and skidded into the grass.

She was breathing hard, and her eyes were wet, and she was grinning.

"Again," I said.

"There's nothing left to break."

"Then stamp on it."

She laughed, and cried, and stamped on the pieces until they were gravel.

I stood with my hands over my ears, and I did not move away.

When it was quiet again, she put her arms around my neck and her forehead against my collarbone.

"It's just a dish," she said.

"Yes."

"It was just a dish the whole time."

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