Chapter 3

I let it ring out. It started again before the screen even went dark.

When I finally answered, his voice wasn't the one from the back room at Brenno's. It was soft. Careful. The voice he used to have, back when I still believed it meant something.

"Come out with me tomorrow," he said. "Just us. No guards, no family, no Celeste. I want to pick the ring with you. For Founders' Day."

Just us. He hadn't said those two words to me in a year.

I should have said no. I knew exactly how it would end. I already had the bag packed and Odette's clean phone sitting at the bottom of it. But some stupid part of me wanted one good afternoon first. One memory that didn't end in stitches, before I set the whole thing on fire.

So I told myself I'd say no, and the next day I got in the car anyway. That kind of stupid.

The shop was on the good end of the city. One ring in the window, a doorman who knew the family by name. Rafael's car was already out front.

So was Celeste's.

She was inside when I walked in, sitting on a velvet stool with a tray of rings in front of her. Rafael stood at her shoulder.

"There you are." He kissed my temple like the world was fine. "Celeste needed a few things picked up. I told her she could ride along. You don't mind."

It wasn't a question.

"Sit here, Orla. We won't be long." He didn't look at me when he said it. He was already turning back to her.

So I sat.

Celeste lifted two rings, held them to the light, set them both down, and made her face go helpless.

"I can't choose," she said. "Rafa, come help me. The mirror's better in the back."

She reached for his hand. He let her take it. They went behind the curtain at the back of the shop, and I stayed on my stool with a tray of rings nobody was going to let me pick.

Ten minutes.

The salesgirl brought me water I hadn't asked for.

Twenty minutes.

I could have made a scene. A year ago I would have gone back there and dragged him out by the collar and made him choose in front of the whole shop. But I already knew what he'd choose. So I sat with my hands in my lap and let the girl top up a glass I wasn't drinking.

After a while she stopped meeting my eyes. She'd worked out what everyone in that shop had already worked out. The wife was out front. The other one was in the back.

I got up. Told myself I was only going to check on them. I almost believed it, halfway across the floor.

The curtain didn't reach the wall. There was a tall mirror angled just inside, and it showed me the whole thing before my hand ever touched the fabric.

Celeste against the wall. Rafael's head bent into her neck. His hand spread wide across her waist, holding her the way he hadn't held me in longer than I could remember.

My nails cut into my palms. But I didn't make a sound. Odette had stitched me up seven times and I never made a sound then either. This was easier than any of those. It just ended the last thing I'd been stupid enough to hope for.

I let the curtain fall and walked back through the shop. I didn't hurry. I picked my coat up off the stool on the way.

Outside, I called Sabine.

"Orla? I thought you were out with him."

"Is that place on the docks still open? The loud one. Nobody in there knows what a Donna is."

"...What happened."

"It's over, that's what." I looked back through the glass, at the empty stool and the rings I never touched. "Come get me in twenty."