Page 150 of Suite 7

The silence is airless.

“He wasn’t alone in there.” Not a question. Her gaze moves back to me, slow and certain. “Was he.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes.

“I was looking for you. And when you said you’d been outside getting air, I believed you. Because why wouldn’t I.” She stops. Turns back to Kane. “And you helped me look.” Her voice drops to almost nothing. “I thanked you for being a good brother.”

Neither of us says anything.

She looks at us — both of us, side by side in the wreckage of everything she’s just reconstructed — and the last of her composure gives out. She looks back at me.

“Gerald.”

The word lands like a stone.

She says it again, quieter. Not to me — to herself. I watch her go back through it. Every time she asked how’s Gerald with that same smile. Every time I let her be delighted.

Her hand goes to her mouth.

“Every text.” Her voice cracks open. “Every time I asked how it was going. Every time I told you I was happy for you. Every time I said he sounded different.” She looks at Kane. Then back at me. “She saved you in her phone with a fake name. Did you know that?”

She answers before either of us can. “Of course you knew.”

“Did you laugh about it? Some private joke about how long it would take me to figure it out. How I kept asking. How happy I was for her.” Her voice splinters. “How stupid I was.”

“That’s not—“ Kane takes a step forward.

She takes a step back. “Don’t.”

“Answer me one thing.” Her voice drops. The crying almost gone, replaced by something exhausted and final. “Is this love? Or are you both finally scratching an itch you’ve had for years?”

I look at Kane.

He looks at me.

But the words stick. Because we haven’t said them to each other yet.

Kane’s jaw works. “We haven’t⁠—“

“Oh my god.” Sloane’s face goes pale. “You destroyed everything and you don’t even know if it’s love.”

A breath.

“Figure it out.” She crouches down, picks her keys up from the floor with shaking hands, and straightens. “Because if you put me through this for something that burns out in three months, I will never forgive either of you.”

“Sloane—” I take a step forward.

She turns back.

Not rage. Not the screaming from before. Just Sloane — mascara running, keys clutched in both hands — looking at me with nothing but grief.

“I thought you were my best friend.” Barely a voice at all. “But the person I knew wouldn’t have looked me in the eye on that Wednesday and said no. Wouldn’t have come over that Friday and watched me show her a photo.” A breath. “Every time I gave you a way out. Every time you chose to keep lying.”

She stops.

“I don’t know who you are right now. And I don’t know if I can forgive that.”

The elevator pings.