Chapter 8: Nine Weeks

Desmond's POV

She said "Again" and walked out of the coat room, and I let her go.

I stood among the wool coats with my hands open.

Then I went back to the party and smiled at donors for an hour, because that was what I did.

I was good at it.

I had been good at it my whole life.

I kept looking for her green dress in the crowd, and it was gone.

She had taken a cab home without telling me.

I wasn't angry.

I couldn't remember when I had last been angry at her, because she hadn't given me a reason to be in three years.

That was the problem.

When I got home, the house was dark and the hall lamp was on.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs.

I had been standing at the bottom of stairs for three years.

I could still see the other ones, the hotel stairs, the gold carpet.

Selene at the bottom of them, curled up with her wrist at a bad angle and her hair in her face.

Katja at the top, one arm out, her mouth open.

The blood on the carpet had been small and very bright.

I had run down to Selene, because that was where I was.

My mother had appeared out of nowhere in a black dress, kneeling on the carpet, saying, "Don't move her, don't move her."

Selene had been shaking.

"I'm so sorry," she'd said. "I wanted to tell you in a better way. I was going to tell you."

I had stood there while my mother said the word out loud.

Baby.

I had looked up the stairs.

Katja had not been looking at Selene.

She had been looking at me.

Her face was so white, and I took that to mean guilt.

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