The boy’s stomach lurches. He swallows against it and keeps his eyes on the man. “How many days has it been?”
The man breathes out loudly. “One day, Deakon.”
One day?
Liz.
“She’s gone, Deakon. She has gone somewhere better.”
The boy frowns.
Somewhere better.
She would have brought me.
She would have said goodbye.
She would have taken my hand.
Somewhere better?
I don’t understand.
The boy suddenly smiles. “She doesn’t know where I am,” he says. “Tell her and she’ll come back.”
The man shakes his head slowly. “No, Deakon. She’s gone to heaven.”
She wouldn’t go anywhere without me.
“Where is heaven?”
The man exhales. He blinks at the boy for a moment before turning to speak to someone behind him. The boy doesn’t like this man. Or the other one.
“Where is heaven?” the boy says, louder now. “I need to know how to getthere.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
blesk
My forehead aches. Wine’s lingering reminder. My hand moves across the mattress, reaching out, finding nothing, and my lungs squeeze.
Did he leave?
He said he wouldn't leave.
He swore it! Swore that the gross parts of me, that the unpleasant and vile parts wouldn’t push him away and now, I am here, alone in his bed because he couldn’t kick me out, but he couldn’t stay…
Is that what happened?
I lie still for a moment, listening. The apartment isn’t that quiet anymore. Cars. Horns. The world awake and aware and annoying. Something shifts in me. He didn't leave. Wouldn’t. Everything inside me says this. The world is showing me something else, but I know.
I feel it.
He just isn't here. I roll over and the answer lays on the bedside table, flapping softly, with my name in his handwriting. His handwriting. I recognise it already.
Duchess.
I sit up and read it in the dull yellow morning light.
