heard him stop breathing, and a second later, I felt his lips on my mouth.
It wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d had with him before, hungry, wanting, desperate. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d had with anyone before. This kiss was so soft that it was like a memory of a kiss, so careful on my lips that it was like someone running his fingers along them. My mouth parted and stilled; it was so quiet, a whisper, not a shout. Cole’s hand touched my neck, thumb pressed into the skin next to my jaw. It wasn’t a touch that said I need more. It was a touch that said I want this.
It was all completely soundless. I didn’t think either of us was breathing.
Cole sat back up, slowly, and I opened my eyes. His expression, as ever, was blank, the face he wore when something mattered.
He said, “That’s how I would kiss you, if I loved you.”
He stood up, looking unfamous, and retrieved the car keys from where they’d slid out onto the bed. He didn’t look at me when he left, shutting the door behind him.
The house was so noiseless that I heard his step down the stairs, the first five or so slow and hesitating, and then all the rest in a rush.
I put my thumb on my neck where Cole’s had been and closed my eyes. It didn’t feel like fighting or like giving up. I hadn’t realized there was a third option, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have guessed it had anything to do with Cole.
I exhaled, my breath long and noisy over lips that had just been kissed. Then I sat up and pulled out my credit card.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
• SAM •
I didn’t particularly feel like going into work the next morning, since the world was coming to an end, but I couldn’t think of a compelling and plausible explanation to give Karyn, so I left home and drove into Mercy Falls. I couldn’t bear the sounds of Grace the wolf, either, clawing disasters into the walls of the downstairs bathroom, so it was a mercy, in a way, to leave, though I felt guilty for feeling that way. Just because I wasn’t there to be reminded of her panic didn’t mean that she wasn’t feeling it while I was gone.
It was a beautiful day, no sign of rain for the first time in a week. The sky was the dreamy, high blue of summer, months early, and the leaves of the trees looked one thousand colors of green, from electric, plastic shades to a hair lighter than black. Instead of parking behind the store as I usually did, I parked on Main Street, far enough away from the center of downtown that I wouldn’t have to feed a parking meter. In Mercy Falls, that was only a handful of blocks. I left my jacket on the passenger seat of the Volkswagen, put my hands in my pockets, and started to walk.
Mercy Falls wasn’t rich, but it was quaint, in its way, so by virtue of its quaintness, it had a pretty thriving downtown. Charm, plus proximity to the beautiful Boundary Waters, brought tourists, and tourists brought money. Mercy Falls offered several blocks of boutique-sort shops to part them from their cash. The shops were largely of the sort that kept husbands waiting in the car or sent them poking around in the hardware store on Grieves Street, but still I glanced in windows as I walked. I kept to the edge of the sidewalk so that the cautious morning sun could reach me. It felt good on my skin, a small consolation prize in this terrible and wonderful week.
I made it a few yards past a shop that sold clothing and knick-knacks, and I stopped and doubled back to stand in front of the window. A headless mannequin in the window wore a white summer dress. It was just a simple thing: thin straps up over the shoulders, a loose tie round the middle. The fabric was something that I thought was called eyelet. I imagined Grace in it, the narrow straps over her shoulders, a triangle of bare skin below her throat, the hem falling just above her knee. I could imagine her hips beneath the thin material, my hands bunching the fabric at her waist when I pulled her to me. It was a carefree dress, a dress that was about summer and ankle-high grass and blond hair streaked