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And in the dark, where he couldn’t see her, Cleo’s eyes filled with tears

She waited She kept herself fro—which she was certain he would notice no matter hosy he was—by sheer force of will The minutes ticked by, and Khaled drifted off to sleep And soon enough the clock on the nightstand told her it was nearing three o’clock, which meant it was finally time

This is it, she told herself, oddly paralyzed now that theIt’s now or never

She told herself that the thing she felt, heavy and bristly and painful, was anything at all but grief

He didn’t hen she sat up He didn’t even twitch, and still she had to order herself to climb out of the bed and do this

Sheroo the door behind her In the corner stood a selection of wrapped gift boxes, which the odious Margery had selected and Cleo had announced she wanted to inspect personally before they handed the the good wife all the way to the hilt She’d swapped one of them for her own box back in Jhurat, and that was the one she opened now, expecting to feel nothing but sheer triumph when she pulled out her battered backpack

Instead, she felt a rush of so far too bittersweet to name

She shoved it aside and unzipped the pack, dressing quickly Her favorite jeans, a bit baggier now then she re-sleeved T-shirt she kneas co trips and a zip-up hooded sweater over it for warmth Her old Chuck Taylors

All the e so hard to keep at bay swamped her She screwed her eyes shut, forced herself to breathe past the constriction in her throat, and then she swung the backpack over her shoulders and moved back into the bedroom

Carefully Quietly

Faint light froh the drawn curtains, and Khaled lay sprawled in the center of the bed the way he always did, as impressive in sleep as he ake and aware As formidably, ruinously beautiful

More so, perhaps, because it was only when he slept that she could look at hiames When she could simply admire him When he looked softer, more approachable More hers

And standing there in the glooht, dressed like the backpacker nobody she’d been when he’d found her, Cleo stared at hi and wished this wasn’t so hard That it didn’t hurt