Chapter 13: What She Came to Do

"Yes," Rhys said. "I knew."

He didn't reach for me, and he didn't look away.

Abel sat up on his crate with a grunt and a crack of the bad knee.

He held out his arms, and I put Junie into them without thinking.

"Take it outside," Abel said. "I've got the baby. Shout all you like, the sea will cover it."

I climbed the cellar steps in the dark.

Rhys came behind me, close enough that I could hear him breathing.

The rain had thinned to a cold drizzle, and the wind had dropped.

A smear of moon showed through the cloud.

I walked down the hill to the beach, fast, with my arms wrapped around myself.

At the waterline I turned around.

"Two years," I said. "You made me coffee. You held my hair when I was sick. You cried when I told you I was pregnant."

"I did."

"And the whole time you knew I was lying."

"Yes."

"I watched you sleep," I said. "More nights than I can count. I stood over you and thought how easy it would be."

He didn't flinch.

"I know," he said. "I woke up for some of those."

My mouth fell open.

"You woke up."

"I kept my eyes shut. I figured if you ever did it, I wanted it to be your choice and not a thing I'd stopped."

"That's sick."

"That's what I had."

I laughed, and it came out wrong.

"Don't make yourself the saint in this. You signed it, Rhys."

"I know."

"Twelve men. Danny was twenty-two. He sent me a photo of himself on that pier and a text that said he'd bring me back a shell from Darwin."

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