(Lena)
The wedding conversation had wound down naturally, the way conversations did when you had covered everything you could cover without actually having made any firm decisions yet.
Cole was still at the island across from me. Neither of us had moved to do anything else. The evening was settled around us and the house was quiet and it felt like the kind of moment where there was still something left unsaid.
There was.
I had known it all day. Since the couch. Since waking up in our bed this morning and lying there in the quiet before Cole stirred and feeling it sitting there the way it had been sitting there since the hospital.
"Cole," I said.
"Yeah."
"I need to tell you something."
He looked at me. He didn't reach for his phone or shift in his seat. Just looked at me and waited.
