Page 58 of What We Burn

I’ll call her tonight.

Thank you for telling me.

I stare at her words. No warmth. No edge. No anger. Just acknowledgment that I performed a function—messenger, go-between, the guy who passes the note and waits to be let back in.

It’s more than I deserve. Less than I want. Exactly what I’ve earned.

SEVENTEEN

SAGE

Milo drives me to the café even though I assured him I’d be fine alone.

That was just hopeful thinking on my part. There’s no way he was going to let me go alone—none of them were—but Holden’s at the station, Knox is at the club, and Micah’s out on an errand he got cagey about. Which left Milo, who insisted on driving and is now parallel-parking across the street from the café with the focus of a man docking a submarine.

“I’ll be right there.” He points across the street to a bench with a direct sight line to the café window. “Whole time. You won’t even know I’m there, except you will, because I’ll be the devastatingly handsome man pretending to read a newspaper.”

“You’re going to sit on a bench and watch me drink tea for an hour?”

“I’m going to sit on a bench and provide discreet overwatch while you drink tea. Completely different. One’s romantic, one’s tactical, and I’m doing both.” He hands me my phone. “Anything feels off, you text me one letter. Any letter. I’ll be across that street before you finish typing it.”

“Milo. It’s Amy and Jamie. The most dangerous thing in there is the fact their names rhyme.”

“That’s what they want you to think.” But he says it softer than the joke deserves, and his eyes do the thing they’ve done since the attack—that quick sweep of the street, cataloging exits, faces, the cars at the curb. He hasn’t stopped doing it. None of them have. “Humor me, kitten.”

I lean over and kiss his cheek. “Bench. Newspaper. Brooding. Go.”

I called Amy last night, like I said I would.

It was good. Better than good—an hour of her talking and me mostly listening, my voice still rationed, and somewhere in the middle the knot I’ve been carrying loosened half a turn just from the sound of her. She wanted to see me. I wanted to see her. She mentioned Jamie had been asking after me ever since the hospital, so it became the three of us.

There was just one thing I had to ask her for first.

“When you see Jamie,” I’d said, careful, “can you let him keep thinking it was—what my boss told him. An accident.”

She was silent for a moment. Because she knows what that means, and she knows what happened to me—she was there. She’s one of the few people who know for a fact I didn’t do this to myself.

“You want him to think you tried to—” She couldn’t say it either. Nobody can. That’s the whole point of the word accident. It’s the nice coat people button over the ugly thing so they don’t have to look at it. “Sage. Why would you let him think that?”

Because an accident is a closed door, I wanted to say. People hear it, they wince, they look at their shoes, they never ask again. It makes them so uncomfortable they leave it alone. The truth—someone tried to murder me—generates interest. Interest I don’t want.

“It raises fewer questions,” I said. “I’d rather have the kind of thing people are too awkward to bring up than the kind they can’t stop digging at. Please, Ames. Just—let him have the accident.”

She was quiet a second. Then she said, “Okay. Zipped. But for the record, I hate it. You shouldn’t have to wear that.”

I know. But I’d rather Jamie think I’m a woman who tried to die than know I’m a woman someone’s hunting. The first one makes him sad. The second one gets people killed.

The café is small. Six tables, a chalkboard menu, a barista with sleeve tattoos who looks like she bench-presses the espresso machine for fun. Amy and Jamie are already at the window table, mid-laugh, and the sight of it loosens another knot. They met once, weeks ago, and apparently that was enough—Amy’s got her chin in her hand and Jamie’s doing something animated with a sugar packet.

“There she is!” Jamie spots me and his whole face does the golden-retriever thing—full-body delight, like I’m the best thing to come through a door all year. He half-stands, pulls out the chair beside Amy. “Sit, sit. We got you the chamomile. Amy said you’ve sworn off caffeine, which is tragic, but I respect a woman with boundaries.”

“I’ve had so much chamomile this month I’m starting to photosynthesize.”

Amy’s up and hugging me before I sit, careful the way everyone’s careful now, like I’m made of porcelain. “You look good,” she says into my hair.

“I look like a coat rack.”

“A cute coat rack.” She holds me at arm’s length, scans my face with the open worry she’s never once managed to hide. “How are you really?”