Chapter 21: The Confession I Never Wrote

I did not go alone, and I did not wait for permission.

Mrs. Radford had taken a corner table in the restaurant of the Harbor Grand.

A pot of tea and a folded sheet of paper sat in front of her.

She looked at Miles, then at me beside him, and then she pushed the sheet across the cloth.

"Sit," she said. "Both of you. You wanted to explain, so explain this."

It was a printed text message from a number I knew.

It was my old number, the one I had before January, the one that was not mine anymore.

Mrs. Radford, I'm writing because I can't live with it.

I set the fire at Miles's yard.

I was jealous of his friend Brooke, and I wanted him to have nothing but me.

I am so very sorry for everything. Please forgive me and tell Miles that I love him.

I read it twice.

It was the kind of voice Brooke thought I had.

Sweet and a little pathetic, and everything in it was an apology.

"Well?" Mrs. Radford said.

Miles took the sheet and read it, and his mouth went flat.

"Mom, Leah would never write this."

"That is exactly what a person says."

"No," Miles said. "It's what a person says who has spent two years reading her."

He put a finger on the page.

"She doesn't say 'so very sorry.' She says 'sorry' and then names the thing."

He turned the page over.

"She has never asked for forgiveness in the same breath as an admission. And she would never write 'I love him' about me in the third person."

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