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"Brynnehe’s gone, sweetheart I’ into the phone to me and I was struck with the idea that I’d never seen or heard her cry before now

I droppedsplash that sprayed across the front ofat the bottoet ain

I ended up on o There was nowhere good to go to--I was trapped

So I started to float like I had that other ti to htness feels good when your heart is so heavy it wants to drag you down into the pits of hell Yeah, being out of her until I could look down atinto a phone at someone The waiter rushed over to assist

But it was all so stupid

Why e all on the floor of a posh London restaurant e should have been eating our lunches? We had to get out of there I had a dress to find and a wedding to plan My dad was coive land had received an invitation, for Christ’s sake We didn’t have tiured it out The lightness that felt so nice went away and the weight of pain and grief returned to take its place

I didn’t want to coht where I was

That’s not true I wanted to keep floating upward until I dissolved That sounded really nice to ed hatred for the ceiling That godda away

Let o! Let me float away

16

I sat up and looked over at Brynne She slept In a couest bed, in her father’s irl slept She was crushed inside her heart, but for now she rested She was unburdened froht forto the States for her father’s funeral without me was out of the question What if they tried to take her on American soil? No, I couldn’t risk the possibility This was a day-by-day, hour-by-hour operation Keeping Brynne safe was reatest priority now, Oly in for me, and between hi I wasn’t very troubled at all about er and vastly ht on what had happened to Tom on this trip but didn’t hold out ht They could try to get at her, but they’d have to go through me first

Mrs Exley had wanted us to stay with her in the home she shared with her husband, the nontalkative Frank, but Brynne wouldn’t hear of it

She said she wanted to be in her father’s hos, in the place where she’d last seen hirateful that the last ti that toand he was happy"