He Hid Our Marriage for Two Years, So I Told the Whole Ballroom novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: The Envelope

I took the envelope to the sink.

It was a deep old enamel sink under the window, with a scorch mark on the lip where somebody before him had burned something else.

"Ione," Lachlan said behind me. "Tell me what you're doing."

"Before I do it?"

"Yes," I said.

"I'm going to burn it."

I lit the gas ring with a kitchen match and held the corner of the envelope in the flame.

The paper curled.

It caught slowly, brown and then orange, and I dropped it into the basin and watched his signature go.

It took less than a minute.

When it was ash I ran the tap, and the black water went down the drain.

I turned around.

Lachlan was standing very still by the table with his hands open at his sides.

"I don't need a page to leave," I said. "I know how to leave. I did it once, in a car, with nothing. What I never had was a reason to stay that wasn't a promise."

"Ione."

"I'm not saying yes. I'm saying no one gets to hand me the choice with a bow on it. I make it on my own, with my hands, and I did."

His voice was rough.

"What do you want now?"

"You."

I crossed the room and took the front of his sweater in both fists.

"Tonight. Now. I'm not asking for after."

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