Page 59

Brandt laughs, easy. "Right. Sure. The snoring." He pushes the elevator button. "See you at skate, Cap."

The doors close on him. I stand in the lobby with my heart going too fast and think: He's watching. It's not paranoia. He's been watching since the tutu. He's watching everything.

When I get back to the room, Castel's awake.

He's sitting up in bed with the sheets around his waist and his phone in his hand, and he looks up when the door opens, and I watch his face go through three different things before it settles.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi."

"You left."

"I went for a walk."

"At five in the morning." He puts his phone down. "I woke up and you were gone and the ring was gone. I thought—" He stops. "I didn't know what I thought."

I sit down on the edge of my own bed. The one I didn't sleep in.

"I didn't put it back on," I say.

He looks at my hand. At the pale stripe on my finger.

"Okay," he says, carefully.

"I don't know what I'm doing."

"I know. You said."

"I mean I don't know what I'm doing today. At skate. On the bus. In front of everybody." I look at him. "Brandt's in the lobby. He asked if you slept okay."

His face changes. The warmth goes out of it, just a little. A gap closing on the backcheck.

"What did you say?"

"I said I snore."

"You don't snore."

"I know."

He's quiet for a second. Then he pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them, and he looks very young, sitting there in the sheets with his hair sticking up.

"So we don't tell anybody," he says.

"Not yet."

"Not Sorel."

"Not anybody."

"Okay." He nods. He doesn't look at me. "I said I wouldn't. I won't."

"Rémy."

That brings his eyes up.

"It's not because of you," I say. "It's not—you didn't do anything wrong. Last night wasn't—" I don't know how to finish. I try again. "I'm not sorry. I thought I'd be sorry. I walked around that whole lake trying to be sorry. I'm not."