Chapter 13: Nathaniel Was There

Nathaniel's POV

The elevator doors opened on the lobby, and Claire did not move.

I stood holding the box of her grandmother's notebooks and waited for her to hit me.

She looked straight ahead at the marble floor.

"Not here," she said.

"No."

"Tonight. Every word of it."

"Yes."

She walked out ahead of me, past the front desk, with her back very straight.

I had seen that walk once before, in a photograph.

It had been taken outside a courthouse, and the woman in it was twenty-six and smiling at nobody.

My car was at the curb.

She got in and turned her face to the window, and I put the box on my knees and told the driver Brooklyn.

I kept my hands flat on the lid, because they would not stay still.

The second time began for me in a hotel bed in Milan, with a trade-show badge on the nightstand and the wrong date on my phone.

It was the day of the Langley anniversary.

I sat on the edge of that bed for ten minutes, unable to breathe right.

Then I booked the first flight to New York.

I had one job, which was to be in the room before she left it.

I had no invitation.

I gave a coat-check girl a hundred dollars and stood where I could see the stage.

I watched Trevor Langley announce a baby that could not be his.

I watched her hand him the papers and walk away without crying.

That was when I knew she remembered too.

Last time, she had thrown a drink.

Beside me in the car, Claire had her forehead against the glass.

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