Page 257 of Sweet Ruin

“It does.”

“You spent twenty years on it.”

“A waste, as it turns out.”

“And you’re telling me this so I feel—what? Grateful?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m simply telling you the truth. All of it.”

Then he reaches into the case one more time and takes out two pages, held together at the corner by a single staple. Even from here, I can see the burn mark on the letterhead and the brown stain in the margin.

It’s the original note, with the pledge folded once beneath it.

“Do you still want this?” he asks. “I know how you are with your record-keeping. Or should I burn it?”

I come around the counter for the first time. I take a spare sheet pan from under the register and set it on the café table by the window. Then I get the long matches stored with the birthday candles.

“Burn it,” I say. “Here. Where I can see it.”

He lays the note on the pan, and the pledge on top of it, and steps back. I strike the match. The flame wobbles in my shaky grip.

Slowly, uncertainly, I lower it down. The corner catches. The document with my forged name browns, blackens, and disappears. My signature—correction, not my signature, but the forgery, the pretty lie of it, the D with the wrong loop—curls in on itself and turns to nothing at all. The blood stain on the corner burns with the rest.

The document that ruined my life is reduced to nothing but ash.

I stand there breathing bonfire and thinking of Connor at my kitchen sink, feeding pages into a fire and turning on the tap when he heard the door.

When it’s pure soot, I run the pan under the faucet. The whole thing goes to gray paste. I dump it in the trash and let the lid fall.

Kane hasn’t moved.

“Is there anything else?” I ask without turning to face him.

“No.”

“You sure? No envelope or last gift? Nothing you took off Connor this week? Is he missing a kidney now or something?”

“No,” he says again. “This is the end of it all.”

My throat is so clenched up that it aches. “Okay,” I say. “Goodbye, then.”

But I don’t hear him making any sounds of leaving.

I turn halfway in time to see Kane wrestling with something to say. His hands are fisted and his jaw is tight.

“It’s all there, you know,” he says at last. “There’s no catch or hidden traps.”

“Sure. Okay. I believe you.”

I do, funnily enough. This is one thing he wouldn’t lie about. Not like this, at least.

I look at the documents laid out on my counter and then at him standing there in a wet sweater with nothing in his hands. What comes out of my mouth surprises me.

“I still love you, you know. I was thinking about it while I was working today. So in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted you to hear that from me. I love you no matter how much I wish I didn’t.” I stop to breathe. “But I don’t trust you. And that’s not a thing you can hand me across a counter. There’s no notary for it. You could bring me ninety-one more bound stacks and I’d still be standing here on pins and needles, waiting to find out what I don’t know yet.”

“Lilah—”

“That’s not me punishing you. It’s just where I am.” I swallow and keep going. “I sat in that chair by the window last Sunday and I couldn’t tell the difference between you and him and my sister and my mother. After that, I stopped trusting my own judgment. Until I get that back—if I ever do—I can’t do this.”