Chapter 23: Steady, Kid

Saskia's POV

The ballroom smelled of candle smoke and cold coffee.

Waiters were folding linens at the far end, and nobody looked at me.

Chloe sat on the edge of the stage with her feet over the side.

Her white dress was creased, and her gold bracelet hung loose on her wrist.

The cream card lay on the floor beside her.

She didn't look up when my footsteps stopped.

"If you came to gloat," she said, "get it over with."

"I didn't."

"If you came for me to say sorry, I won't."

"I didn't come for that either."

She raised her head.

Her face was blotched and plain.

Without the tears and the pastel cardigan, she looked her age, which was seventeen, and very tired.

"Then what?" she said.

I had practiced a dozen speeches on the stairs, and I could not remember one.

So I said the true thing.

"Your father asked for the keys three times."

She flinched.

"I painted it this week. I've been looking at his hand, held out like that, for days."

I took a step closer.

"He wasn't saving me, Chloe. He wasn't saving you either."

My voice cracked, and I let it.

"He was trying to protect everybody on that lawn. He would have done it for strangers."

"Don't."

"I wasn't there for the part where he was your dad. You were."

I kept my voice level.

"Remember that part. Don't keep the bracelets and the house. Keep him."

For a long moment she said nothing.

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