Chapter 15: Twenty-Three Seconds

Kendrick woke at five, and for the first time in two years he was not alone in the bed.

Becky lay against his side with one hand flat on his chest.

He kept still and listened to her breathe.

He had told her to stay, and she had stayed, and he did not trust it.

The thought came every morning, in the gray before the light.

She would look at him in daylight and see only the chair.

Vanessa had held on for two years, and then she had run out of a ballroom the day he finally believed her.

He eased out from under Becky's hand and swung his legs over the side.

He took the rail and stood.

Twenty seconds, and then twenty-two.

His legs burned, and he did not care.

"You're counting," Becky said from the pillow, with her eyes shut.

"Twenty-three."

"You're allowed to be pleased."

He sat down hard, grinning at the window, and then the grin went.

"There's something I haven't said," he said.

She opened her eyes.

"You said no hidden files."

"This isn't a file. It's about the vows."

He made himself look at her.

"I watched you in the ballroom. Every time the judge asked something, you looked past me at the door."

Becky sat up slowly.

"I looked at the door because I was waiting for Colby to walk back through it," she said.

"I know."

"You knew that and you married me."

"I knew it, and I still do," Kendrick said.

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