Chapter 22: Onions

Rhys's POV

On Thursday night I came off a double and found my kitchen light on.

I stood on my own porch with my keys in my hand, and I could smell onions.

I opened the door.

Natalie stood at my stove in the gray cardigan with her sleeves pushed up, and my one pan was on the burner.

A pot of something simmered beside it.

A paper bag of groceries sat on the counter, and every item in it was a thing I didn't own.

"You have a key?" I said.

"You left it under the flowerpot for the gas man on Monday," she said without turning. "I never gave it back."

"That's burglary."

"It's dinner."

I put my bag down.

She slid the onions onto a plate, and the smell filled the kitchen, sweet and brown and warm.

"Sit," she said.

I sat at the table.

She put a bowl in front of me, and a spoon, and she sat across from me with her own.

I ate, and it was the best meal I'd had in a year, and I could not say a single word about it.

"Say something," she said.

"It's good."

"That's all?"

"I'm trying not to say the other thing."

"What other thing?"

I put the spoon down.

I had written the speech in my head on four night shifts.

It went out of my head the moment she looked at me.

"I held the footage for a week," I said.

"I know. You told me."

"I told you it was a plan. I didn't tell you the plan was bad."

She waited.

"The first night, I wanted to post it," I said. "I had my thumb on the button at three in the morning."

"Why didn't you?"

"I thought, she'll be the girl everyone watched get dragged out of her house. For a week, until they forget."

"And you didn't."

"I couldn't be one more person who watched you."

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