Chapter 6: Someone's Idea of Me

"Don't stop on my account," Leona said.

Lawrence crossed the shop in three steps and took the phone out of her hand.

"You aren't supposed to be out of the guest house."

"I wanted air."

"You wanted this."

He scrolled, found the video, and deleted it while she watched.

Leona didn't seem to mind.

"It's backed up," she said. "I back everything up now. When you only have six months you save your happy memories."

"Leave," Lawrence said.

"I'm going." She smiled at me over his shoulder. "Lovely roses, Millicent. Friday."

He walked her out to the car himself.

He looked back once through the glass, and I looked at the thorn mark on my thumb.

I didn't wave.

The next afternoon the shop was full.

Four customers, a delivery boy and a woman buying hydrangeas for her mother's funeral.

Roxy was on the phone in the back.

I was wrapping tulips at the counter in an apron covered in her cat's hair.

The bell rang.

I knew the perfume before I looked up.

Amber and black currant.

It was the one Lawrence had made for me, in a little shop in Paris, for our first anniversary. They only made it once.

Leona walked in wearing it.

She had cut her hair to her shoulders overnight and dyed it dark brown.

She had on a gray wool coat that I'd bought in October.

I'd left it at the Thackeray house. It had been in my closet.

"Hello, Millicent," she said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Two Hearts That Could Never Meet from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.