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“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m not worried.” He shrugged, toying with the teaspoon left
on the table.
“But Arthur said they’d kill you!”
Charles leaned forward, giving her a conspiratorial grin.
“What do I care? I’m already dying.”
She felt his words like needles in her chest. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. Thom pretends like it isn’t, but I don’t mind. At first
I was angry, but then I figured, why spend my last few months
bitter and angry over something I can’t change? Besides, I have no
regrets about coming here. This is the perfect summer.”
His eyes sparked with so much life as he grinned at her that
she couldn’t, wouldn’t accept that he would ever die. She stood so
fast her chair clattered to the ground. Rounding the table, she
kissed him on the cheek and pulled him into a hug. “I won’t let
you go anywhere. And neither will Thomas.”
“Well, that’s settled, then.”
She could hear the teasing laughter in his voice, but she didn’t
care. If Arthur terrified her now, Charles was the most comforting
thing in her life, and she loved him for it.
“I have something for you,” he said.
Minnie released him, pulling her chair right next to his and
sitting back down. “If it’s a secret, I think for once I don’t want it.”
He laughed. “No secret. Here.” He reached into his pocket
and pulled out a locket. On a gold chain, twisted like a delicate
rope, the pendant swung and glittered. It was oval, filigreed, the
pattern accented by stones that Minnie was quite sure were dia-
monds. She had never seen a more beautiful necklace.
“It was my mother’s,” Charles said, lifting it over Minnie’s
head and pulling her hair free of the chain so the cool metal rested
