“I love you,” he said again, “and I’m sorry. I was so wrong... the book, our book, it’s just...perfect, and that’s because of you, and I should never have thrown that all away, and more than that, I just... I can’t believe I was willing to letyouget away over, God, I don’t know, my own sense of impossibility—and I think I was mad because all this would have been so much easier if I had just known about the journals, but then...”
Whit shook his head. She still held the kettle in one hand, but his fingers on her face were hot water bottles that filled her whole body with warmth.
“But then I wouldn’t have met you, and I wouldn’t have realized that Icando it, and that Helen loved me enough toletme do it. I think I was afraid, because this is all messy and complicated, and I do have Annie to think about. But when you were gone... when I thought you’d maybe moved away to New York, I realized this is worth whatever messy complications there are.Youare worth it.”
Merritt tried to speak, but he continued, his next words spilling out rapidly, tripping over each other in an angry sprint.
“And then—I’m sorry, Merritt, but I missed you so much, so I read that stupid Lyons book—and I realized that there is no version of the story where you’re the bad guy. You’re the heroine. In all of it. And you saved me, too.”
He paused, swallowed, and tenderly stroked her cheek. “I love you, Merritt, and I don’t care about any of the rest. I love you.”
Merritt stood, stunned, as the ache in her body moved up her throat and prickled all around her head, transformed into something fizzy and buzzing. She looked at the kettle in her hand as if it were an alien object, until Whit deftly slipped it from her fingers and set it, blindly, on the counter behind him. His hands reached for hers, but she pulled them away and up, up toward his face. His beard was bristly against her palms, and his eyes latched onto hers.
“Oh Whit, I love you,” she said, and the words came out almost perfunctorily, because of course,of courseshe did. “I’ve been lying to myself about it since that first day I came to your house.”
He looked so surprised that she laughed.
“What, then? I was a mess.”
“?‘Was’?”
He pretended to pull away, offended, but she held his face straight.
“You brought my back to myself, Whit. You saw me when I couldn’t, and I’ve loved you all along.”
She pulled him toward her. Their bodies pressed together, his hands spread across her back, and they fell into a long kiss that felt like hope.
Later, as they sat by the crackling fireplace, drinking tea out of mugs that said “World’s Best Librarian” and “I Read Banned Books,” Merritt broke the companionable silence.
“I have to tell you something.”
“What?” Whit asked, looking at her like whatever she said could only bring comfort and peace.
She set down her empty mug.
“It’s big.”
He shrugged, as if it would be impossible to move him out of his current harmonious state.
Merritt leaned toward him, took a breath, and said, “I convinced Helen’s editor to read the manuscript.”
Whit’s jaw fell open.
“You what?”
Merritt raised her hands semi-triumphantly.
“I got some information about the publishing house from Willa—”
“Willa knew?”
Merritt nodded.
“And Édouard came with me—”
“What?” Whit said again.
“Well, I called Evie, and they let me stay over, and then the three of us sort of strategized. Édouard insisted that he would come along and tell them he represented both of us.”
