I reach into my back pocket that Theo told me to give to her, and I place the folded piece of paper on the counter beside her coffee mug without a word.
She looks at it, then at me.
I turn around and start to leave.
"Beck."
I halt.
"Thank you," she says.
I nod and walk to my car, open the passenger door, and Cody is still reclined in the seat with his eyes closed, his arms crossed, and his jaw loose.
I’m her safe place.
I like the sound of that.
Chapter 65: Adela
Istareatthepiece of paper for a long time before I touch it.
It's just sitting there beside my mug on the counter.
I can’t believe that I'm standing in the kitchen of Cody’s lake house, where I've been in twice now, under circumstances I never could have predicted.
And I'm staring at a folded piece of paper like it might do something if I look at it long enough.
It doesn't do anything.
It just sits there.
Theo's handwriting is on the outside. Just my name.
I can’t take it anymore; I reach for it and unfold the crease.
Top shelf. Kitchen. Left side.
I look up.
Top shelf. Left side. I'm five foot four on a good day, and the top shelf of this kitchen was not built for me.
I drag a chair over.
I climb onto the counter and reach up. My hand finds it first. It’s a book. I grab it and climb down.
I sit on the counter with my legs dangling and the book in my lap. I look at the cover for a moment. The dark romance novel. The one I chose blindly in a bookstore with his hands over my eyes. The one he read the fake dedication from in a park above the water while I ate strawberries and laughed and thought — I genuinely thought — that I was safe. That whatever it was, it was mine and something good.
I open the book.
The first margin note is on page four.
His handwriting is small in the left margin, the way it always is, pressed close to the text like he's in conversation with it.
I saw you before you saw me. I want you to know that. Whatever you decide about everything else — know that.
I read it twice and turn the page.
Page eleven.
