“Anyway,” she brushed him off. “I cleaned the whole house, but I couldn’t get rid of all that glass. I mean, I could have. But when the whole house was clean and I was left with a handful of broken glass shards, I didn’t want to. I wanted something of his, even if he hated me. I asked Michael to help me make this. My dad wasn’t a good dad. Or really a dad at all. But he was mine. And I didn’t want him to be erased. I wanted to always look at the tree and remember.”

“Remember what?”

Her arms froze over the tree. The whiskey bottle star halted over the greenery. Her face knitted tightly in an expression he’d never seen come across her face before.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “Remember him. Remember that I survived. Remember that I forgave him and loved him even if he wasn’t good to me.”

“You forgave him?”

Kate blinked. Her long eyelashes were wet with tears, but none fell down her cheeks. Her stare melted into confusion, as if he was a student who’d just asked what the capital of their own state was, as if the answer was so obvious as to render the question absurd.

“I had to.”

“Why?” He asked.

Somehow, Clark and Kate had gotten so close he could feel her breath on his skin. He wanted to kiss the wrinkle between her eyebrow away. He wanted to hold her and tell her nothing could ever hurt her again.

“Because we can’t survive if we’re always carrying dead bodies around, you know? That’s no way to make a happy life.” The sting of conviction stole the breath from Clark’s lungs. He was guilty. He’d been dragging around dead bodies his entire life, robbing himself of any chance of happiness just so he could forget his own pain. Kate rolled her eyes, an attempt to clear the air of tension. “Besides, he was kind of a jerk. He probably would have resented my forgiveness. No better way to get revenge, right?”

She moved to step away, but Clark caught her. He couldn’t help but touch her. Their intimacy demanded it. His cold hand reached up for her left cheek; he cradled it, commanding her eyes. Her breath hitched. His heart stumbled. Kiss her, you moron argued with don’t ruin what you have by kissing her, you moron. He’d gone most of his life without friends, and tonight he’d found one. Learning from her and basking in their friendship had to be more important than kissing her.

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”