Rose POV
The drive home was quiet.
Not the uncomfortable kind. The kind that settles between two people when too much has happened in too few hours and words feel inadequate anyway so neither of you reaches for them.
I pressed my hand flat against my stomach under my coat where he couldn't see it.
Tonight, he'd said.
Tonight, I'd agreed.
And now tonight was approaching the way difficult things always did; faster than you were ready for and slower than the dread of it.
***
Lilly was home when we got in.
She was at the kitchen table with her homework spread in front of her and a half-eaten apple beside her textbook, and she looked up when we walked in with the particular alertness of a child who had been waiting and was trying not to show it.
"How's Bella?" she asked immediately.
