I woke up before you. Watched you sleep for a while. You looked so far away from all of it, and I didn't want to be the reason you came back right now.
I've gone for a walk. Don't panic.
Last night was the hardest thing I've ever done, and given my life, that’s… Well, that something.
But I need you to hear this; it was good for us. Not what happened to you. Not what you have been through all these years, but that you told me. That we don't have anything left between us that isn't shared.
There's something I need to say and I know you well enough by now to know you'll argue with me if I say it out loud, so I'm writing it down, so you have to actually finish the sentence before you tell me no.
I keep thinking about your father.
I know. I know. Just keep reading.
He's the only person alive who has the answers to the questions I've been asking my whole life. Why he took me. Who I was to him. And now, another question… Who sent that man to your hospital room after you?
I have lived with a vague sense of what happened to me, and he might be the only person who has more.
I'm not asking you to see him or be okay with this. I'm asking you to come with me to the prison, because I won't go without you, and I think some part of you might need this, too. Let’s make a fucked-up bucket list. Let’s always tick off the list, never hide from it. Whatever you want to call it. Closure. Healing. A murder mystery like our first date. We just keep moving forward if we always tick it off.
And if… Fuck. If after all of this, when it's all done, and there is nothing left on the list, you want to bury Deakon, really bury him, just leave him under a tree with Liz, I'll do that with you. We can write letters and have a ceremony. Whatever it takes. I love you, Duchess.
I'll be back soon.
Xo Konnor
I exhale hard, the part about burying Deakon affecting me so much my lungs struggle. I don’t want to bury him—not him. He was underground for so long…
I cover my face and breathe into my palms, letting the note seep inside and curl around, finding a place and a plan. He didn’t mention the horrible thing I did with his fingers inside me, didn’t even hint to it. To how I went back to that day, how I remembered it with him close—how it stopped being static and became real.Okay.I lower my hands.
I slide from bed, throw on my clothes, grab my phone, and leave his apartment, my hair in disarray. In the lobby, I find Adolf at his desk, reading something in front of him.
His eyes lift to me. "Miss Bellamy." He nods once. "He's on the stairs."
I stop in front of him. "Sorry?"
"Mr Slater," he repeats, knowingly. "He doesn't take the elevator.” He glances at the entrance to the stairwell. “When he has something to think through, he walks the stairs. Up and down. Sometimes for quite a long time."
Oh.My heart squeezes. "How long has he been in there?"
Adolf checks his watch, lips moving silently. "About an hour and a half, I'd say."
Nodding softly, I walk over to the door and enter the well. I look up and hear footsteps on concrete, rhythmic and strong. My stomach drops, thinking about last night. About what I did, what I let him see. Not just see but— be a part of.
I force my legs forwards and begin to climb the steps, chasing the sound of his footsteps, climbing.
We meet somewhere in the middle.
He stops a few steps above me, blinks once as if to accept I’m what he is seeing. We stand between floors, between whatever we were last night and whatever we're going to be.
He looks exhausted. He looks like a man who has been climbing stairs for over an hour, his body needing somewhere to go and something to do, and this was the only place he could go without leaving me…
To keep his promise.
"Hey,” he says, his voice deep and gravelly as if that is the first word he’s uttered today.
"Hi."
We don’t take our eyes off each other, my pulse races through my neck and it’s not from climbing stairs.
