Chapter 18: Against the Terms

"I saw your phone," Clara said. "At six. I didn't mean to."

Miles lowered the cup.

"Then you know I haven't decided anything."

"You wrote to them on Sunday."

"I wrote a question."

"You wrote a question with my name in it."

He did not look away, which she had to admit was to his credit.

"I told them there was someone here I wasn't ready to leave," he said. "That's all it said."

The words warmed her, and she hated how much she wanted to stay in them.

"No," Clara said.

"No what?"

"You are not giving up Lisbon for me."

"It's September, not never."

"September is how it starts. Then it's January, and then it's a job at the bookshop."

"Then you're thirty, and you tell Hannah you gave up an archive for a girl whose father forged her name."

"That isn't what would happen."

"It's exactly what would happen. I know how I look to people."

"I don't care how you look to people."

"I do." Her voice broke. "I do, Miles. I've spent my whole life being the reason somebody else's plans went wrong."

He put the cup on the step and turned to face her.

"Say it, then," he said. "Today's sentence. What do you want me to do?"

She opened her mouth.

She knew the sentence. It was four words long and it had been in her backpack for three years.

Nothing came out.

She heard her father's voice in the quiet.

You want something, sweetheart, ask for it, and watch what it costs you.

"I don't know," Clara said, which was a lie.

Miles looked at her for a long time.