Chapter 249

Kazuo jammed Amélie's last pair of boots into the suitcase. Half the stuff in there didn't even look like it belonged to her—a gaudy scarf, a shirt with a print of some Paris landmark she'd once mocked, cheap souvenirs from places neither of them had been together. It pissed him off for no real reason, but he didn't say anything.

She sat cross-legged on the floor by the bed, folding one of his hoodies she planned to "borrow indefinitely"—her words—and cramming it into her backpack.

"Three years," Kazuo said, not looking up. "It feels longer sometimes. Shorter other times."

He zipped the suitcase.

Amélie was staring at the backpack, closing and reopening the same pocket as if something inside might magically rearrange itself.

When she finally spoke, her voice cut through the silence like a flicked cigarette landing in dry grass: "You know you could come with me."