Chapter 24: Two Hearts

The last guest left at midnight, carrying a bucket of ranunculus and singing.

Constance had gone before the cake, as I'd told her.

When we stacked the chairs, the folding one by the window was empty, and the seating chart lay on its seat.

I picked it up.

On the back, in small neat gray ink, she had written: Sit where you like.

I looked at them a long moment.

I did not forgive her. I put the paper in my pocket anyway, because it was the first thing she had ever given me that didn't come with a price.

Lawrence was waiting at the foot of the stairs with my shoes in his hand.

"Your feet hurt," he said.

"They do."

"I'm carrying you up."

"There are three flights."

"I'm aware," he said, and he lifted me.

He carried me up all three, and he did not once stop, and at the top I was laughing so hard that the radiator in the hall knocked in answer.

He set me down in the studio.

The lamp was on. I had left it that way.

On the nightstand, propped against the clock, stood a small white card with a crease down the middle.

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