Page 121 of Never Forget
"He's putting his foot down on her. He said this one takes the cake. He's done paying for the things she breaks. I think he meant it."
I put my head back down.
"So the school is taken care of?"
"He's handling it. Rescinding the application. Making sure my name doesn't stay on anything I didn't sign."
I was quiet for a second.
"You've been busy."
His hand moved slowly up and down my back.
"Rosie's been asking about you."
Sam shifted. Looked down at me.
"Yeah?"
"Every day. She asked me this morning if you'd gone to be with her mom and dad."
His face did a thing.
"Jamie."
"I know."
He was quiet for a second.
"Do you want to come with me? To pick her up?"
"Yeah?"
"So she knows that you're—" I swallowed. "That you're still here."
He put his hand against the side of my face and looked at me like I'd just handed him something.
"Gladly."
CHAPTER 30
Sam
I woke up before the alarm.
The light was coming in sideways through the blinds—pale and Sunday-soft. Jamie was warm against my side, her hair was in my face. Her hand was on my chest over my heart, the way it always ended up by morning. I lay there for a minute and didn't move.
Her side of the closet had half my shirts in it now. My records were on the bookshelf in the living room next to hers. A single box of my stuff was still in the corner of the bedroom, the last one I hadn't gotten around to unpacking. There was no rush. I'd closed out the apartment a week ago, handed the keys to the landlord in a parking lot, and driven away from the only place I'd lived as an adult without looking at it in the rearview mirror.
It hadn't felt like losing anything.
Jamie shifted against me. Her hand moved, slow, absent, and settled again.
This.
This was the thing I hadn't known was possible. Waking up to her breathing. The quiet of the apartment before Rosie got up. The knowledge, without having to check, that the next room overhad a four-year-old in it who would wait for us at the kitchen table.
We dropped Rosie at preschool a little after 9:00 a.m.
