Page 167 of What We Bury

“I know. Discretion is one of the things I’m actively learning.”

A laugh escapes before I can stop it, and I hate myself for it, because I’m supposed to be angry. Iamangry. The laugh doesn’t cancel that out. It just punches through because he’s on his knees on a public sidewalk next to a funeral wreath with a ribbon that says I’M SORRY I’M AN IDIOT, and there’s a couple across the street taking a photo of him, and his eyes are so wide and earnest that he looks like a golden retriever who’s just eaten the Christmas turkey and knows he’s in trouble but also kind of hopes you’ll still love him.

“Get up,” I say.

“I can stay down here if public humiliation helps.”

“It doesn’t. The concrete is filthy, and forgiveness isn’t a hostage exchange.”

His face crumples a little.

I crouch down so we’re eye level. “Get up so I can talk to you.”

“I fucked up,” he says, expression finally stripped of the performance.

“Yeah,” I say. “You did.”

He nods. Swallows. “Can I explain? Not to make excuses. I know there isn’t one. I just want you to know what was going through my head when I did it.”

I stand and hold out my hand. He takes it, and I pull him to his feet.

“Let’s take a walk,” I say, eyeing the giant wreath. “But that thing stays here.”

“What about the ribbon? Can I bring the ribbon?”

“No. No wreath. No ribbon. No props. Just you, Milo. I only want you.”

He eyes the wreath longingly, then sighs. “Okay. Just me.”

FORTY-SIX

MILO

She leads me around the side of the diner and into the alley, and I follow her like a man walking to his own sentencing.

The alley is narrow, shaded. Dumpsters line one side, and the diner’s back door is propped open with a milk crate on the other. Not exactly the setting I’d have chosen for the most important conversation of my life, but Sage didn’t ask for my input on the venue. She hasn’t asked for my input on anything, which is probably the point.

She turns to face me. “Is there anything else you want to disclose? Are you planning to embed a chip in me? Maybe hack my phone?”

I look at the ground. “No, but all of those are great ideas.”

“Milo!”

Fuck.

“Sorry. Okay,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “Here it is. No jokes.”

“No jokes.”

“The cameras.” I shove my hands in my pockets because I don’t know what to do with them. “I put them in last week,when I fixed the lock. I told myself it was about security—about keeping you safe when none of us could be there. And that was part of it. That was genuinely part of it.”

“But?”

“But the other part . . .” I look at the ground. At my shoes. At the crack in the concrete where a weed is pushing through, because even weeds are braver than me right now. “The other part is that I wanted to look at you. Like, all the time. And instead of asking, I gave myself access I had no right to take.”

“So you watched me.” She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t sigh or look away or play it for drama. She just stands there, her face blank in a way that would make most people squirm, but it makes me want to confess everything. Even more than I already have.

“Not, like, in the creepy way,” I add, then realize that’s exactly what a creep would say. “God. Never mind. It was in the creepy way. I was obsessed, I am obsessed, and I told myself it was protection because I wanted to know you were safe when I couldn’t be there.” I lick my lips, which taste like regret. “I should have asked. I should have told you. I shouldn’t have done any of it before I had your permission.”