Chapter Ten — What They Keep

"I'm sorry." Gwen said it into Sam's hair, her voice wrecked, before either of them had let go of the other. "I'm so sorry, Sam. I keep saying it and it isn't enough, and I don't think there's a version of it that would be enough, but I need you to hear it anyway. I did this. Whatever else is true, I did this to you, and I don't get to just be sad about it alongside you like it happened to both of us equally. It didn't. It happened to you because of me."

Chapter Eight — What They Choose

Outside, the night had gone clear and cold and enormous.

They came down the hall's wide steps into it together, and the dinner closed behind them like a door underwater, all that candlelight and scrutiny and held breath suddenly muffled and far away, and Gwen stood on the bottom step in the freezing air and let herself, for one unguarded second, simply breathe.

"The car's down past the trees," she said, automatically, reaching for her keys.

Chapter Six — Together

The room was exactly as they'd left it, and entirely different.

Chapter Four — Consequences

"What are you hiding, Gwendolyn?"

For one suspended second Gwen reached for the reflex she'd spent her whole life perfecting — the bright, smooth, nothing-to-see deflection, the Aldous voice that turned questions away at the door. "Hiding? Grandmother, I don't know what you—"

Her grandmother lifted one finger, barely, and the lie died in Gwen's throat.