Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Twenty Feet Away

Selina POV

He didn't let go until we reached the white marble. There he let me at once and I stumbled. My free hand flew to my stomach before I could stop it. I caught myself before I hit the ground but not without breathing hard.

He didn't notice my hand, he was looking at the stone.

"Read it."

"Damien—"

"Read it out loud."

The lilies were crushed against my chest. Two more stems had broken on the way and the brown paper was torn at the corner.

I looked down.

*LYRA GRACE SCOTT. BELOVED DAUGHTER. ADORED SISTER. AGED 19. TAKEN TOO SOON.*

There was a photo set into the marble under the words. A girl with Amora's eyes and a gap between her front teeth, laughing at someone off camera.

My throat tightened. She looked so young.

"Read out loud," Damien repeated.

"I can read it, Damien. I don't need to perform it for you."

"You came here to perform."

"I came here—"

"Then say sorry." His voice was low and flat. "Say it to her. Right now."

I stared at him. Behind us, Amora had come up slowly. She stood at the foot of the grave with her hands clasped in front of her coat, eyes wet. What a perfect picture of a grieving sister.

"Damien, you don't have to," she murmured. "She didn't know Lyra. She doesn't understand."

"She doesn't have to understand. She has to apologise."

"For what?" I asked.

"For coming here."

"I'm allowed to come here. It's a public cemetery."

"For coming *here*." He pointed at the marble without looking at it. "To this grave. The morning after Amora gets home. You think I'm stupid? You think I don't know what this is?"

"What is it, then? Tell me. You seem so sure."

His jaw worked. "A message."

I almost laughed. "A message to who?"

"To her." He jerked his chin at Amora. "*Stay away. He's mine.* That's what this is. And you picked the worst place on earth to say it."

I looked at Amora and she looked back at me with soft, sad eyes. And behind them, just for a second was something pleased.

My stomach turned. "I'm not saying sorry," I said.

Damien went very still.

"I didn't do anything to her sister. I didn't come here for her. And I'm not going to stand at a dead girl's grave and lie, just so you can feel better about where you slept last night."

The words came out fast and shaking. I hadn't planned them. They'd been sitting in my chest since the photo, and now they were out, and I couldn't take them back.

His eyes went dark.

"Where I slept is none of your business."

"I'm your wife."

"On paper."

The word hit like a slap. I felt it in my face first, hot, then in my chest.

*On paper.*

Amora stepped forward. "Please, both of you. Not here. Not in front of her." She put her hand lightly on my arm, like we were friends. "Selina, come. Let's walk back to the cars."

"Don't touch me."

"I'm only trying to—"

I stepped sideways, away from her hand. And she stepped sideways too into me.

Her shoulder caught mine. Not hard. I barely felt it. But she went down like I'd pushed her off a cliff, heel twisting, a sharp cry, both hands grabbing at the air. She landed on the grass beside her sister's grave in a heap of camel coat.

"Amora!"

Damien was on his knees beside her before I'd even turned around.

"I'm fine," she gasped. "I'm fine. It's just my ankle. I think I— oh." She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Oh, that hurts."

"Don't move. Let me see."

"It's nothing, really. It was an accident." She looked up at me through her lashes. "She didn't mean it."

I stood frozen with the broken lilies in my arms.

"I didn't touch her," I said. "Damien. I didn't touch her. She walked into me."

He looked up at me from the grass, there was nothing in his face. No anger. No question. Just a tired, cold flatness, like he was looking at a bill he'd already paid too many times.

"You always cause problems," he said.

Something inside me cracked. I felt a real crack, right in the middle of my chest, like ice on a pond when someone steps in the wrong place.

*You always cause problems.*

Two years. Two years of silent breakfasts and dinners alone. Two years of smiling at his friends while they talked over me. Two years of his grandmother's birthday parties, where I wrapped every gift and wrote every card and he signed his name at the bottom without reading it.

Two years of waiting up. And last night, two pink lines in a drawer, and him laughing about saddles in the shower.

"I cause problems," I repeated.

My voice sounded strange but too calm. He frowned and was still holding Amora's ankle.

"Selina—"

"I cause problems." It came out broken.  "I've never asked you for anything. Not once. Not money, not time, not a single dinner. I didn't ask you to marry me or ask you to come home. I didn't even ask you where you were last night."

"Selina, you're shaking," Amora said softly. "Maybe you should sit—"

"*Shut up.*"

She flinched. Damien's head came up sharply. I didn't care. I couldn't care anymore.

"You want to know why I'm here?" My eyes burned. I didn't wipe them. "You've wanted to know since the second you saw me. You've been shouting at me in front of strangers about it. Fine. I'll tell you."

His face changed, something uncertain crept into it. I turned and lifted my arm, with the crushed lilies still hanging from my fist, and pointed up the slope.

At the yew tree, the grey stone underneath it, half covered in fallen needles are two names carved side by side. His eyes followed my hand. 

I watched him read it. I watched the colour go out of his face.

"My parents are buried here," I said. "Twenty feet from where we're standing."