Chapter 19: The First Morning

I packed one bag.

It held the gray dress I had married him in, a toothbrush and the gas station sweatshirt.

I had decided to keep the sweatshirt.

Matthias stood in the doorway of the room I had slept in for two weeks, with his arm in a black sling.

He had not tried to stop me, and he had not offered to carry the bag.

"The car is downstairs," he said. "The driver will take you."

"Thank you."

"Your father's house is clean. The council had it searched."

"Good."

I looked at the bed I had never once slept in properly, and at the lock on the door, and at the little brass key on my palm.

I had taken it back from his desk that morning.

I held it out to him.

"I don't need to lock a door against you," I said.

He did not take it.

"Keep it," Matthias said. "Keep it all, the room, the lock, all of it. You can come back or not."

"That's how you say it?"

"I was a bad host," he said. "I treated you like a guest, because I was sure you'd go home the first morning you could."

His voice was dry, and his hand was white on the doorframe.

"I was wrong about that too, I think. I'm not going to follow you. You've had enough men decide where you go."

I stared at him.

I had spent a week wanting him to say something like it.

Now that he had, I had nowhere to put it.

"I'll see you," I said.

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