Page 106 of Don't Tell

She has earned the room watching.

I have earned the right to be the man who delivers it.

I slip the box into the inside pocket of my jacket.

I text Beau.

Set.

He replies in three seconds.

Try not to throw up on her.

I almost smile.

The bedroom door opens.

She comes out humming.

She is in a dress the color of the green stone in my pocket. She is wearing the locket. Her hair is down. She has put on the small pair of gold earrings my mother gave her and has not, in four months, taken off.

She stops when she sees me.

"You look handsome."

"You look like mine."

"Cade."

"You do."

She crosses to me. She straightens the lapel of my jacket the way she has been doing for months — a small, private claim.

She steps back.

"Wait."

"What."

"I have something for you. Before we go."

"Suzanne. We're already late."

"I know."

She turns. She disappears into the studio off the hallway — the room I had built out for her three months ago when she said, casually, over coffee, that she wished she had north light. I had a contractor in the apartment by the end of the week.

She comes back with a canvas held against her chest.

The back of the canvas is toward me. She is biting the inside of her lower lip the way she used to bite it when she was deciding whether to give somebody a gift they're not expecting.

She turns it around.

The painting is the size of a large book.

A man is on a bed.

His left wrist is cuffed to the iron frame above his head. His right hand is free. The key is on the nightstand exactly 12 in. out of reach. There is no sheet. The man's face is turned toward the door. He is waiting.