Chapter 5: One Bed

By Tuesday the gala video had four million views, and there were two photographers parked outside my building.

One of them knocked on the laundromat window and held up his phone.

"Molly! Is it true you turned down a Leverett?"

I went out the back door with a bag of clean clothes and walked three blocks to where Ethan's car was waiting.

He had not asked me to come.

He had only texted: "The lane is empty. The door is unlocked."

I told myself it was the bag of clean clothes.

I did not tell myself why I had packed it so fast.

That evening it rained.

By nine it was coming down in sheets, and the wind pushed the water against the glass of the guest wing.

I was reading in bed when I heard a soft drip.

Then another.

A dark patch spread across the ceiling over the pillow, and a whole line of water ran down the wall to the floor.

I found Ethan in the kitchen with a laptop and a cold cup of tea.

"The guest wing's leaking," I said. "Is there another room?"

He closed the laptop.

"The roof on that side's been going for a year. I've been meaning to fix it."

"Is there another room?"

"There's the sofa," he said. "It's not long enough for you."

"There's another bedroom."

"There's mine."

We looked at each other across the kitchen.

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