I stop at the carrel and look down at the table. There’s a note. Is Adela playing a little game of clues with me now? It’s folded once, but I don’t bother with what it says.
Not when I have a massive problem in front of me.
I look at Serena's bag, and then back at her face.
"Whose number did you just send that to?"
My voice is the kind of quiet that has nothing to do with calm.
She opens her mouth and closes it.
Then the smile comes back — sharper now, the one she uses when she's decided she has something. Her eyes move from my face to the carrel to the note and back to me, and I watch the moment the understanding moves through her.
It's not a slow realization.
It's immediate.
"Oh," she says softly.
Then she laughs.
It's not a nice laugh.
"It's you." Her eyes glaze over with pure amusement. She looks at the note again. Then back at me. Her head tilts and laughs. "You're the one she's been meeting here." Another look at the carrel. "Cody's girlfriend." A beat. Slower. "And you."
I say nothing.
"God." She laughs again, shorter this time. "I always knew she was a whore."
The word lands between us.
I look at her for a long moment. At the bag. At the fake smile. At the slight tension in her shoulders that tells me she knows she has gone somewhere she can't easily come back from, and she's hoping the performance covers it.
It doesn't.
"Let's go," I say, grabbing the note and shoving it in my pocket.
"Excuse me?"
I lean in. "You’re walking out with me." I don't touch her. I don't need to. I hold the space between us at exactly the right distance and look at her with exactly the right expression and wait while she decides.
She decides correctly.
We walk out of the library side by side. I hold the door. I don't rush her. I don't put my hand on her anywhere. I move at a pace that requires her to match it, and I don't speak, and I don't look at her.
My car is closest.
I unlock it without asking.
She gets in.
I get in.
The doors close, and the library disappears behind us. I start the engine, pull out, and I still haven't said anything. Serena is sitting in my passenger seat with her bag in her lap, and the smile is gone now. Completely. The performance stripped back to whatever is underneath it.
She's looking straight ahead.
"Theo—"
