“I DON’T KNOW WHAT to say,” Lily said after Silas followed her in from the lawn, the single poppy, still red enough to look like blood, greeting both of them from the dining room table.

She’d known that this moment, or a moment like it, was inevitable. On some level, that knowledge might’ve even been part of the impetus for the affair. But just like everyone else who feels their back hit an inevitable wall, she didn’t think it would happen so soon. Later, sure. But not now.

“I know you’re fucking this guy; I read his texts when I found your phone. He’s not subtle. And I’m guessing it’s Gavin Kelly, given your recent display of interest in . . . what? What even is this? You never gave a shit about Sarah,” he said, gesturing at the flower with enough force that the petals moved.

Lily put her hand over her phone instinctively.

“I deleted them. But you can always ask him; I’m sure he’s getting antsy for your response.”

She remembered Gavin’s text.

. . . anything?

She had two choices. She could see them laid out in front of her like paths on a game board, one curving left, one curving right.

Option A: She could lie. She could downplay, deflect, and deny until there was nowhere left to go. She could cry—she knew she could—and beg. She could point out Silas’s moments of failure until forgiveness felt mutually beneficial.

Or there was option B: She could tell the truth. Come clean about the affair, about the Forgetting Years that led to it and what had created the Forgetting Years in the first place. She could finally ask him the question she had always wanted to ask, and maybe catch him off guard enough to get an honest answer.

In other words, she could hold tight to the life she knew, or she could blow it all up and pray that what waited on the other side was at least as good.

She took a breath.

“Did you kill her?”

Silas tensed, but less so than she would’ve predicted. When she thought about asking that question in the past, she imagined him driving off the road or choking on his food. Something with wide eyes and white knuckles, or at least a variation in breath. But instead, the words just seemed to flicker through him, like sunlight on the lake.

“How could you even ask me that? You were there, Lily. You testified.”

“You weren’t in bed when I woke up.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That night, when I woke up. You weren’t there. That’s why I went for that walk; that’s why I saw—”

Silas laughed. The sound cut through the darkest corners of the house, and it wasn’t funny at all.