Chapter 19: On My Way to You

Lydia's POV

The memory came back at three in the morning, with both hands in a bowl of bread dough.

I couldn't sleep, so I had gone down to Jessamine's kitchen and started the morning rolls.

The moon necklace lay on a folded towel at the end of the steel counter.

A courier had left it Tuesday in a handkerchief with no note.

I was pressing the heel of my hand into the dough when the smell of wet pavement went through me.

It was the curb outside the bakery, in the rain, and my own wet hair stuck to my cheek.

I was standing at the edge of the road with my phone in my hand, and I had just stopped recording.

I wasn't crying anymore.

I was shaking, but it was the shaking of someone who has finally made up her mind.

In my coat pocket was the red sliver, which I had picked up from my tin that afternoon, because I wanted to put it on his table.

I remembered saying out loud, to nobody, "I'm going to go and let him say it."

Five months, and a court record, and the whole city calling me names.

I had never let him explain.

I stepped off the curb toward the penthouse, looking the wrong way, and a van I never saw came around the corner.

The dough stuck to my wrists.

I stood still, and the clock over the oven said ten past three.

I wiped my hands on a rag and typed with my knuckles.

I remember. I'm at Jessamine's. Come now.

He came in twenty minutes, walking, with his collar up and his hair wet.

I unlocked the back door, and he stood on the threshold and didn't come in.

His right hand was bleeding.

"What did you do?" I said.

"I hit a wall. It was a brick wall. It wasn't a smart idea."

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