"I should get back. I've left Heathcliff since six and he'll be making his feelings known about it." She smiled, warm and quick, and it landed briefly on Freddie in a way that felt, in a physiological sense, like stepping into a lit room from the cold. "We'll reconvene next week?"
Freddie nodded, not trusting his words.
Wren picked up her phone, tucked the folder under her arm, and walked out. She did not look back. Freddie was aware of not watching the door for longer than was proportionate.
Oliver walked out with Freddie, which Freddie had not asked him to do, and which he was unsurprised by. He fell into step beside him on the pavement, chatting away happily about some animal or other. The night had settled into proper October cold while they'd been inside. The letter sat against his ribs, two inches below his left shoulder. The pavement was uneven, and their footsteps didn't quite match in the dark.
Lies of omissionare the same as lies.
He'd known it before she said it. He'd known her fiancé had betrayed her with lies. Had her best friend — former best friend — had anything to do with it?
Freddie had lied to her. She didn't know that. Especially not when he'd agreed with nearly everything she'd said in the meeting. He thought about the way she'd looked at Oliver in the doorway, that flicker of undisguised warmth.
They turned at the corner. Valor's main street lay ahead of them, amber-lit and quiet. The fallen leaves had blown into drifts along the pavement, gold and amber under the streetlights, thick enough to scuff through.
"Look at that," Oliver said, with the easy appreciation of a man who noticed things and said so. "Looks like the yellow brick road."
It did, a little. Freddie thought about the yellow brick road. He thought about what was at the end of it. He thought, with some discomfort, about the lion who'd traveled the whole length of it looking for something he'd had the entire time and simply refused to use.
"You know what the Cowardly Lion's problem was," Oliver said.
"He didn't think he was brave?"
"He was brave the whole time. He just kept waiting for someone to officially tell him so before he'd act on it. Wasted a lot of time that way."
At home, in the kitchen, Freddie unfolded the tenth letter on the table. Read it. It was the most honest thing he'd written since he left the military. In the service he’d been honest to the point of feeling dangerous. He folded it back in thirds.
The tenth letter, the last one. He would deliver it in the morning, and then it was done, because she had told him tonight exactly what she thought of men who chose to keep secrets.
Tomorrow morning. Seven o'clock. And then he'd stop.
He had said this before; he was aware. Nine times, in fact, the last time with some conviction.
