Robert didn’t expect Jess to faint when he handed her the portrait, but she went down immediately, knees buckling, eyes rolling back, the glass in the frame cracking as it hit the marble floor. He was able to snatch the front of her coat so her head didn’t hit the floor with a lot of impact.
He let her slide gently from his grasp, wondering if the photograph had anything to do with why she fainted, or if it was just a coincidence and her spell was simply a culmination of all that had gone before—the trauma, the lack of sleep. The latter would certainly make more sense. But her eyes had widened when she looked at the photo of him and Keith, taken in the summer when Keith was still robust and healthy, just before things began to go awry.
“What the f**k?”
Robert, from his kneeling position
