Leah asked Owen to meet her by the park gates again.
He was already there when she arrived. His jacket was zipped up this time. He looked as if he had been waiting longer than the message required.
‘How was it?’ he asked.
‘Anna left. Mum told the people she'd lied to that she knew about the money before I did.’
Owen nodded. He looked towards the path they had taken yesterday.
‘Shall we?’
‘I'd rather stay here.’
There was a bench near the entrance, partly hidden by a hedge. They sat down. Leah could see the road through the gaps in the leaves.
‘There was more than the money,’ she said. ‘Mum told Daniel I'd said I could see myself staying when Anna left. I hadn't said anything. I didn't even know she was leaving.’
Owen looked at her.
‘She wanted you and him together?’
‘Yes. She thought if I stayed, he might keep the house. She wouldn't lose going there. The garden, seeing him.’
He sat forward, his elbows on his knees. For a few seconds he said nothing.
‘I thought she just hated me,’ he said.
‘She wanted you out of the way too.’
Owen turned towards her. She saw the opportunity reach him: an explanation larger than his shame, a person who had deliberately tried to break them apart.
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Leah waited.
‘I was still the one who took it,’ he said.
She nodded.
‘And I didn't ask you. I told you it was over because I didn't want you to tell me first.’
He rubbed his palms over his knees.
‘Yesterday I kept thinking if you understood her part, you'd see me differently. You do understand it. I still did the things I did.’
Leah looked at his hands. They were the same hands that had reached for her at the lake, the same ones that had counted the notes into the envelope. She had wanted love to make the two things easier to reconcile.
‘I want to say I was frightened,’ he said. ‘I was. You were the person I should have talked to when I was frightened. I knew you'd listen, and I kept away from you anyway.’
‘Yes.’
He leaned back. A car passed on the road, its windows open, music drifting out. Leah knew the song. Owen did too. He made a small movement with his foot on the beat, then stopped when he noticed her watching.
They had danced to it in the flat while she waited for paint to dry on a little sign for a customer. He had spun her badly and knocked the sign off the table. She had been furious for a full minute. Then he had danced alone until she laughed and joined him again.
It would not take much to want him close now.
‘Was yesterday a mistake?’ he asked.
‘The walk?’
‘The kiss.’
She shook her head.
His face changed, and she knew she had to finish.
‘I wanted to kiss you. I needed to know whether I still wanted you near me. I do.’
Owen looked at her mouth, then at her eyes.
‘Can our love get through this?’ he asked.
It was the question she had been carrying since the lake. If she said yes, he would take her home. They would start cancelling the cancelled things. His clothes would be back in the wardrobe, his stories would fill the evenings, and everyone could speak of a terrible misunderstanding that love had survived.
Leah knew there would be good evenings. That was the hardest thing. She could imagine laughing with him again, not merely pretending for other people.
She could also imagine opening a drawer and wondering why he had looked away.
‘I love you,’ she said.
He moved towards her. She lifted her hand, and he stopped.
‘I'm not restarting the engagement.’
Owen sat back. The colour left his face a little at a time.
Leah took the ring from her pocket.
It looked very small in her palm. She remembered choosing it, Owen taking longer than she did because he wanted to be sure she had not settled for one she liked less. He had been careful about that. He had wanted to get it right.
She held it out.
He did not take it immediately.
‘Are you certain?’
‘Yes.’
‘You could keep it while you think.’
‘I've been thinking.’
He looked down at the ring. ‘I thought bringing the money back would give us somewhere to start.’
‘It gave me my money back.’
He nodded. His eyes were wet now, and she wanted to make the sentence softer. She let it stand.
‘I don't want to marry you,’ she said. ‘I can't keep our good days and make myself forget how you left.’
Owen put his hand beneath hers. She let the ring fall into it. His fingers closed slowly.
For a moment they remained connected by the warmth of his palm against her fingertips. Leah could have held on. She took her hand away.
‘I'll call the venue on Monday,’ he said. ‘I booked that part. I'll tell them it's cancelled.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I don't know what else to say.’
She looked at him. ‘You don't have to find something that changes it.’
He bowed his head. Leah sat beside him while he cried, quietly and angrily, as though he hated himself for doing it where she could see.
She did not put her arm round him. That was difficult too. She knew exactly how to comfort him. She did not want a last embrace to become another promise.
When he could look up, she stood.
‘I'm going back to Mira's.’
Owen looked towards the road. ‘All right.’
She picked up her bag. It was light, almost empty. She had carried her phone and the key Mira had lent her.
‘Goodbye, Owen.’
He looked at her then.
‘Goodbye, Leah.’
She walked out through the gates. She did not feel free yet. She felt as if she had left a living part of herself on the bench.
At the bus stop she took out her phone. There was a message from Anna, sent twenty minutes earlier.
I'm in. The window really does stick. I'll sort it.
Leah typed, I'm glad you're there.
She put the phone away before the bus came. She could be glad for her sister and heartbroken for herself on the same afternoon.