Chapter 12: The Fitting

I told Mitchell on Friday morning, in the kitchen, with my bag already packed.

I had practiced it in the mirror for an hour.

"I'm going back to Lawrence."

He was holding the coffee pot, and he set it down without a sound.

"No."

"It's not your decision."

"Lana." He said it quietly. "Yesterday you told me the two of you were finished. What changed?"

"I thought about it."

I picked up my bag and made my face smooth, the way Constance does.

"He can give this baby a name, a house and a family. You can give it a boat shop."

I watched it land.

Something went out of his eyes.

"That isn't you," he said.

"You've known me nine days."

"I knew you for one night."

"You knew a woman who thought you were someone else."

He stood very still.

I wanted to put my hands on his face.

I wanted to tell him about the cream paper and the cell.

I wanted to tell him I would burn four million dollars before I took it.

If I told him, he would walk into the Ashcroft house with his bare hands and let them take him.

So I said nothing, and the silence went on, and it hurt more than the words.

"Tell me one true thing, Hastings," Mitchell said at last.

I thought about it.

"You were kind to me in a bad week," I said. "Thank you."

He nodded once, slowly.

"If he touches you," he said, "call me. I'll come through the wall."

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