I knocked at Seth's door at eight o'clock in the morning. I had woken at four that morning, completely wired, and had sipped coffee for over an hour, staring out the foggy window at the snow, the dark world looking sad and sinister to my eyes, which were red from crying. I had made a passable breakfast for the girls and scooted out the door at the first stirrings from Sprint and Panic, needing to avoid their eyes until much, much later in the day—perhaps when my own weren't so wrecked.

I had taken my time getting to Brooklyn, walking most of the way in the slush and snow, reveling in the cold and wet, feeling as though I deserved it. Hell, I'd probably freeze to death, or they'd have to chop off some of my toes. That would be fitting.

I had as good as maimed Ben the night before. I may as well have cut off a piece of his body, torn flesh from bone. The look in his eyes kept appearing behind my eyelids every time I closed my eyes, and had made it nearly impossible to sleep—and when I did, I still saw him, saw his face: every bone, muscle, and tendon tensed with hurt and rage, a nerve going in his jaw while his cheekbones seemed to somehow sharpen with anger. But his eyes…his face had been angry. His eyes had been so wounded, so betrayed, and I knew I would never be able to fix it.

If I had let him go when I had planned to, when I had tried to, we could have probably salvaged our friendship. I knew now, after all the things we had said and done, that there was no going back.

I had changed our relationship forever. Smashed it to pieces. And as a result, our entire group would be changed, too. There would be sides, of course. No one would like it, or want to do it, but I knew there were people—like Water and Blink, for instance—who were more loyal to Ben than they were to me. They wouldn't leave, of course, not when their women were my best friends, but it would be different from now on, I knew.

They were both such easy, funny men. Constant, dependable, if a little hyperactive (which, to be honest, made them even better, in my opinion. I can be a little spastic myself, on occasion). I wondered how much of that humor I would see after this mess came to light.

I hadn't planned to tell the girls, not yet. I had stood on the front step for a long time, while the snow fell around me, staring in the direction Ben had disappeared, as though willing him to return. I did not wear a coat, and when I finally realized this fact, my entire body was trembling and shivering, my skin hard and cold.

I had finally forced myself to blink, to turn around, to go back inside. And there they were: Sprint and Panic, in the front room, waiting.

They had heard every word, of course. We had stared at each other for a long moment, and then I had shaken my head slowly, still feeling stunned and dazed.

Panic and Sprint, my wonderful, beautiful girls, had known that words were not what I had needed. Nothing they could have said would have made me feel better. So they simply surrounded me and held onto me. I stood with my eyes closed, feeling my eyes starting to well up.

But while I welcomed embraces, I would not, could not, abide them comforting me as I cried over the mess I had created. So I had kissed them both smack on the lips and went into my bedroom, where I had spent the night alternating between crying on my bed and sleeping fitfully.

Really, I had become more pathetic and sad than I had ever though possible. Really, I am not this girl, I swear. I was literally rolling my eyes at my damn self at this point, but…God. It was just so horrible. I was acting pathetic and sad because…because it was sad. It was unbearable.

And here I was, on a promise, to accompany Seth, the other man I loved, to his mother's funeral, and all I could think about was how horrendously I had hurt Ben. And obviously, confiding in Seth would be a terrible idea. I may bungle things up on a regular basis, but even I'm not that stupid.

So I had put extra makeup on, especially around my eyes, and was praying that Seth would be too preoccupied to notice.

I knocked on the locked door and smoothed my dress, the same one I had worn to David's father's funeral. The bodice was high-necked, slightly taller in the back, pressing against my neck, and all thick, concealing black lace, just enough to show the tiniest flashes of my skin, until the sweetheart neckline, where a thick underlay of sturdy winter cotton curved over my body, the lace still present but less noticeable. The skirt was heavily pleated black cotton. The sleeves were more of the thick lace, and a bit much, in my opinion, for a funeral, but the service was to be held in the cemetery, and there would be no cause to remove my coat, I reasoned.

The only reason I had bought it in the first place, really, was because it made me feel a little dangerous. Fashion was moving forward quickly, and necklines, especially for evening dresses, were getting lower. I wasn't ready to flirt with that quite yet, at least not at a funeral, but Lady and Angel had literally gasped when I had stepped out of the fitting room to get their opinion. Any time the sight of me can make those two women gasp, I hold onto that look with an iron grip.

For Mr. Jacobs' funeral, I had conceded to social standards and worn a hat for once in my life, but I had specifically found the smallest one I could find, a slim, round hat that fit a bit rakishly over my hair, which today, for this funeral, I had twisted into itself and put up. My one allowance to the ridiculous hats of the season was the black rosette on the side, which was a little large for my taste, but what can you do? There really hadn't been anything smaller, and the milliner, when I had chosen the hat and accessory over a year ago, had asked me, pointedly, if I was quite sure I didn't want more added onto it.

No, not really, thanks.

Anyway, none of that really matters. Anything for a distraction, right? My agony loves a good tangent.

Seth opened the door and gave me a grateful smile. I returned it, hoping my face didn't look as tight and pained as it felt.

"I can't believe you're here this early," he said as he showed me in, the side of his mouth quirking up in his skepticism as he glanced at his pocket watch as though to make absolutely sure it was as early as he thought it was. He knew, of course, that morning had never been my favorite time of the day.

"I woke up early," I replied, and said no more.

"You had enough coffee, then?" he said, and this time, his mouth titled in a smirk, and I felt momentarily better, with this man who knew me well enough to tease me about my many idiosyncrasies.

"Never will I have had enough coffee," I said, smiling a little for the first time in what felt like years, and we killed a few minutes sipping hot, strong coffee. I noticed Seth grimacing slightly, subtly, with every mouthful, and was probably more touched than I should have been to realize he had made this coffee too strong for his liking specifically to please me.

When we were finished, we spent a couple silent hours on opposite ends of the apartment, putting still more things into boxes and trash bins. It seemed as though the work of four people the day before had scarcely made a dent. Seth periodically brought all the trash down to the alley, and wound up bringing most of the salvageable items down to the front stoop, where anyone passing by could pick up what they wanted.

The apartment was almost picked clean by the time I found the photo. It was in a drawer, wedged into the back, and horribly preserved. But the little boy in the photo was unmistakable, and I stared into his little face, awed.

"What is that?" Seth was at my side, and as soon as he had fixated on the photo of himself, he had plucked it out of my hands to stare at it himself. He flipped it over, and on the back was written, "Seth Conlon, 1885."

"Three," I murmured, and peered at the picture again as he turned it back over, my cheek on his shoulder.

In the picture, little Seth Conlon was standing in front of the door of a building similar to the one we were in now, his eyes serious in his tiny face. He was beautiful, with impossibly long lashes and big eyes in his thin face. He looked a little underfed, but the miniature slingshot in his hand—a precursor, I guess, for the ones he had brought into use in Brooklyn—suggested a feisty spirit. Those eyes, they were brilliant even in this small, grubby picture, and they looked haunted even then, wary of the world already, but prepared to survive.

"I wonder who took this," he said softly, and turned it back over to look again at the handwriting. "That's not my mother's writing. It must've been a neighbor or something." He looked at his own image once more, running his thumb over his own small, printed face. "They were the ones who took care of me most of the time."

I slipped my arm through his and wrapped my other arm around it, hugging it to me as I pressed my cheek more firmly into his shoulder. He turned toward me, putting my body sideways to his chest as he hugged me with the arm I had not taken hostage. He planted a kiss on my head, and breathed in and out through his nose with his mouth on my hair.

"You're not okay," he said, his voice so low I almost missed it.

I closed my eyes and shook my head against his chest. "Just…not now, Seth," I whispered, and he started to pull away, but I held fast to him. "Just stay."

He tucked the picture away in his pocket and pulled his arm out of mine, turning me to face him, taking both my arms in his hands and looking me in the face. He studied me for a moment, as though reading my thoughts there, and then pulled me back to him, his arms around my back, my head on his chest. I wrapped my arms around the small of his back and tucked them under his shirt, resting them on his hot skin.

I felt warm, and safe. The gnawing in the pit of my stomach receded as he held onto me, and I listened to his heartbeat, slow and strong. I blocked out every sound except that one, every feeling except where his body touched mine, and felt his pulse flow into my body, somehow tricking my own heart into following its lead. I felt myself calming, almost melting into him, and I lifted my face to press my lips to the warm skin just under his collarbone, exposed by the neckline of his undershirt. I tilted my head back further to move my lips to his neck, and pressed them firmly to the tendon that pulsed with his heart.

His body shuddered when my lips made contact with that fragile skin, but he stayed otherwise still, still holding me firmly.

When I finally pulled back, he was staring at me with a searching look on his face, as though trying to figure me out. It had to have been clear to him that I was not alright. He was intuitive enough to guess that it had to do with Ben, but I sensed that he would not come right out and ask me, mostly because he didn't really want to hear the answer.

"I should get cleaned up and changed," he said finally, and as he spoke, my eyes were on his lips, watching how they formed around words, so it was not a surprise when he kissed me. It was at once insistent and tentative, as though he were trying to convince me I wanted it but also doubtful that I did.

But I had never grown out of wanting him to kiss me.

He went briefly to the washroom, and when he returned, he slid behind the curtain to change into his suit. When he came out, I actually had to catch my breath. His entire suit, shirt and suspenders included, was a smoky black, slim fitting. His shoes were highly polished, and against the stark black, his light eyes seemed to glow in his face. He held a black, slightly squared-off bowler in his hand, and was looking at it a little uncertainly.

"Should I wear this?" he asked. "I feel like an idiot in anything but a newsy hat."

I very nearly laughed, and picked up my own hat and put it on my head, tilting it slightly to the side like Angel had instructed the first and only other time I had worn it. "If I have to wear a stupid hat, so do you," I said firmly, and crossed the room to take it out of his hands.

"You don't look stupid," he said softly as I adjusted the hat on his head, tilting his also, feeling a little defiant.

I stepped back, and my pulse jumped. The brim of the hat cast a shadow along his face, making him look a little dangerous and a lot sexy. "Well, neither do you," I said, taking him in.

I decided to look my fill in the next couple hours, so I could possibly make it through the funeral itself without lusting after him. Somehow a graveyard seemed inappropriate a place to have such thoughts.

We walked slowly to the cemetery, stopping to eat lunch. Seth turned into a small shop and came out with a bouquet of gorgeously colored Gerbera daisies, my favorites, the blossoms bold in their coloring—burnt orange, vivid red, sunshine yellow, and an outrageous deep, vibrant pink. I assumed they were for his mother's grave until he handed them to me.

I took them slowly, feeling my lips part in consternation. "You bought me flowers?" I managed, running my fingers over their thick silken petals.

He shrugged one shoulder, looking a little embarrassed but pleased with himself all the same. "Just, you know, to say thank you for coming with me today," he said, tugging on his earlobe with one bare hand, the very epitome of awkwardness.

I pressed the bouquet gently to my chest. "These are my favorites. How did you know that?"

He took my arm and guided along the sidewalk. "I didn't. They just look like…you," he said, ducking his head a little.

We walked slowly the rest of the way to the graveyard, and I did not miss how women on the street stared at Seth, the way their eyes, lowered subtly, followed him as he walked, watched his face and the movements of his body. Instinctively, I tightened my grip on his arm, and he looked up and caught the look on my face as I eyed two young women about my own age, who were walking toward us, whispering and giggling, their eyes on Seth.

"Ah, don't be jealous," he said, grinning at me.

I stiffened. "Who's jealous?" I muttered, unable to stop staring daggers at the rapidly approaching women, who were still staring at Seth.

He stopped walking and took my face in his hands, tilting it up to land a soft, sweet kiss on my waiting lips. I kept my eyes open and watched his lashes flutter on his cheeks. He pulled away and gave me such a classic Spot Conlon smirk I felt as though I were looking into the past. I actually saw him on the Brooklyn docks, holding court, slouching and smirking just like that.

He rubbed his thumb along my face, leaned in to my ear, and whispered, "They are."

As we turned and continued walking, I saw he was right. The girls who had been ogling Seth were now staring resolutely ahead, although the darker of the two cut her eyes at me as we passed, and I could not suppress a smirk of my own.

"You're meaner than you look," Seth remarked, and my chest clenched automatically as I thought, I know.

I pushed that thought aside, deciding compartmentalization was my new motto, and we arrived at the cemetery right on time.

One of the Fullerton brothers was waiting for us at the gate, dressed in a somber black suit and wearing an expression of utmost seriousness. I suppose it was a necessity of the job, putting on that grave face. Honestly, I should have probably been taking notes.

"Mr. Conlon," he greeted Seth, and I felt a little jolt of amusement run through me. "Miss," he said, inclining his head to me. I was at least gratified that he had not called me ma'am.

Word to the wise, men: Every woman—young, middle-aged, or old—hates that shit. Call us Miss even when we're sixty. Ma'am makes us feel crotchety and ancient.

"I'd like to say again how very sorry I am for your loss," Fullerton continued, and I pressed my lips together and nodded in what I dearly hoped was a sadly appreciative expression.

Seth merely nodded once, his jaw tight, and as we walked through the cemetery to his mother's burial site, I slipped my hand out of my glove to place it in his, wanting to feel our skin pressed together.

A tiny, ancient, white-haired priest with skin so white and dry he looked as though he had been smacked in the face with a handful of flour stood by the open grave, next to the closed casket. Fullerton ushered Seth and I to the foot of the casket, and then quietly, quickly, departed.

When the priest began talking in a wavering voice about Clara Durham, my brows furrowed and I looked around to Seth, wondering, for a moment, if we could have possibly been led to some other woman's casket. But his face was unchanged as she stared at the rough wood of the casket, never looking at the priest.

Clara Durham. I had known, of course, that the "Mrs." part of "Mrs. Conlon" had been a fabrication. I hadn't, however, guessed that she would have given Seth his father's last name. Was it a way to lay claim to him, to defy his abandonment? Or had it merely been a way to further distance herself, if only in her own mind, from her child?

The priest seemed to know an inconceivably large amount of information about Clara Durham, and, as he went on singing her praises, it slowly dawned on me that Clara Durham herself had written this little eulogy. She spoke, through the priest, a lot about her childhood and adolescence in Connecticut, about moving to New York City at twenty-one.

When the priest reached the blatant, jarring lie about her marriage to one Daniel Conlon, and his subsequent tragic death, Seth stiffened next to me and clenched my hand. I squeezed back, knowing what was coming and powerless to stop it.

"Clara Durham gave birth to the couple's son mere month after her husband's death, and raised him with as much love and devotion as a single mother could. Her child left home early, and Clara contented herself with a few friends and simple pleasures," the old man was saying, and I knew I was gawking, stunned by her nerve.

Seth was fairly trembling with rage, and when the priest paused for breath, he shook his head and moved forward, holding up a staying hand to the priest, who looked at him in shock.

"Stop. Just stop," Seth said, and his voice was loud but unsteady. "I can't listen to this…this…" I could hear the word "shit" in his head, but knew he was too Catholic to say it in front of a priest. He looked down at his mother's casket as though he wanted to kick it. "You wanna know who she really was?" he said, a challenge in his tone, and I stepped forward with a rush of anxiety.

"Seth, don't. Come on," I said, grabbing for his arm, but he was already started.

"She never married my father. He didn't want her. And she didn't want me. She hated me," Seth was saying, all in a wavering rush, to the flabbergasted priest, who clutched at his Bible and notes so hard I feared he was going to break his brittle little fingers. "She beat the hell outta me every chance she got," he continued, his voice rising in fury, and I stopped yanking at him, riveted. "She was a mean, violent drunk, and she doesn't deserve to have you believe her lies."

Seth paused to look again at his mother's casket. I feared he would go on, but he stood there for a moment before closing his eyes briefly. He crouched next to the casket and laid his hand on it. "You should've loved me," he said softly, and my heart splintered. He stood. "I'm sorry, Father" he said to the priest, his voice trembling, and he walked away.

I let him go on his own, waiting a moment to give him some time. If he had wanted me to come, he would have taken my hand, not walked off alone.

The priest was still looking as though he'd just watched someone get bludgeoned to death. We stood in tensed silence for a few minutes, then I turned to see Seth standing at he gate of the cemetery, leaning on it smoking a cigarette. It was time to hightail it outta here.

"I'm very sorry, Father," I said finally, my voice soft, and to my surprise, he nodded with sudden conviction.

"Death brings out all sorts of secret stories," he said finally, "I shouldn't be surprised anymore."

I smiled weakly and turned to go, at the last second stopping and turning back to Seth's mother's casket.

"Do you think she can hear me?" I asked the priest, and he seemed relieved to be back on solid footing.

"Yes," he said simply, "I think she can."

I fixed my gaze firmly on the casket. "Well, in that case," I said, "You didn't deserve him. And he certainly didn't deserve you." I looked up at the priest. "I'm sorry for this Father," I warned, and as he opened his mouth to respond I looked back at the casket and finished, "I hope you burn in Hell."

Then I spun on my heel and left the priest staring after me, naked astonishment on his old, wizened face.

I joined Seth at the gate and, determined not to baby him, not here, outside, in public, where it would only humiliate him, I instead plucked the cigarette from his fingers and took a drag, not even caring that passersby were shooting me disapproving looks. You know, a lady smoking in the street. All that nonsense. Like my bedroom is classier or something.

"Do you want me to take you home?" Seth said finally, clearing his throat before speaking.

"No," I said, handing him the cigarette back. "I want us to get lots and lots of food and go back to your apartment."

So we did. We bought bread and cheese and butter and cubes of ham, plus divine caramel buns for dessert, and entered the nearly-empty tenement. All that remained was the bed and the couch—the things we couldn't carry down the stairs.

I immediately dug into Seth's bag for the clothes I had worn the previous day and slipped them on before we sat down to eat. The bed was strictly off-limits, as far as I was concerned, mainly because: putting my body in the bed some old bitch died in? Seriously disgusting. So we put the couch cushions on the floor and sat cross-legged on them. Neither of us said much as we ate, and when the food was gone, I leaned back against the foot of the couch and surveyed Seth as he toyed with the last bit of bread, rolling it back into a ball of dough with his fingers.

I spoke suddenly, without intending to. "I want you to tell me what happened to you."

He jerked upright and stared down at me, his eyes blazing. I felt briefly nervous, but forced myself to remain leaning, remain casual and non-threatening, and met his eyes with a calm gaze.

"Why the hell would you want that?" he said finally, looking more irritated than anything.

"Because I want to know you," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.

"You do know me," he insisted, looking around as though someone could possibly have materialized that could possibly be interested in our conversation. "You know me better than anyone."

I very nearly snorted. "Yes, and I know next to nothing about what happened to you with your mother."

"What does that have to do with anything? It's done," he said, and balled up the newspaper the meat had been wrapped in.

"It's not done," I shot back, feeling my neck starting to get hot. "She's gone and buried, but what she did to you made you who you are. I want to understand what happened to you."

"Understand?" Suddenly he was on his feet. "What's there to understand? There is no understanding!" He was yelling now, the ball of newsprint smashed in his fist. "She ignored me when I was a baby. An old neighbor told me once that she used to let me lay on the floor and cry. The fucking floor. If it weren't for the neighbors I probably would'a starved to death," he spat.

"When I was a toddler I'd go to my neighbor's to get food, 'cause I knew there wouldn't be any in my own house. I had black eyes all the time from about four on. She used to tell me she hated me. She'd get drunk and tell me I was a mistake." He threw the ball of paper at the wall.

"Seth—" I started, but he interrupted me.

"What? What? You wanted to hear this, Lydia! You wanted to know! You wanted to know all about how my own mother used to slap me in the face for asking for food. You wanted to know all about having to break twigs off trees in the park to make a goddamned fire in the winter when I was five." His eyes burned hot as he stood in the center of the room and I cringed into the cushion, unable to look away.

"You wanna know all this?" he demanded. "How she broke my arm when I was seven 'cause I didn't get her a drink fast enough? Or how about the big one? You wanna know that too?"

"Seth, I—"

"No, you wanna know, right?" he said, his voice dripping with false, manic good-humor. "I was twelve. She was drunk, as usual. I was trying to clean up after her and I broke a picture frame. She grabbed my arm and pulled me to her. I already had a dislocated shoulder from when she'd shoved me into the wall a couple weeks before." He shut his eyes, seeing the scene behind his lids. "I started crying, and she shook me and hit me a couple times and told me that she never should've had me, that I was bad, and useless. She said there was no purpose for me."

He opened his eyes and looked right at me, and I felt my insides shrivel with shame for having made him do this. "She dragged me out of the apartment and pushed me down the stairs. I caught myself on the rail with my good arm about halfway down and ran. When I got to the lodging house they cleaned me up. I had another black eye, the shoulder, a busted lip, and a twisted ankle."

He stopped, breathing hard. I literally couldn't move. I could not remember, it seemed, how to move my limbs.

"Is that good enough for you, Lydia?" he said, his voice hard and cold. "Or do you want me to tell you more? Like how I cried in my sleep when I first got to Brooklyn, and how Ben would crawl in with me and tell me it was alright."

Oh, God. Ben. Of course he did that.

"You wanna know every detail about how what she did to me is the reason I treated you like shit? You wanna know how terrified I was when I finally realized how fucking in love with you I was? You wanna know every thought I had when I ran—like how I was sure you would hurt me, because everyone did. Or how I was sure I would turn into my mother and do something unspeakable to you."

I was crying now, could feel the tears on my face and my breaths speeding, but I still could not physically move.

Seth crouched down in front of me and parted my raised knees so he could kneel between them. Slouched against the couch, I was in a very vulnerable position. He took my upper arms in his hands, and I was surprised at how light his grip was.

"You wanna know the rest?" he asked, his voice less heavy, less angry. "I missed you. I missed you every goddamned day I was gone. And I came back here because my mother asked me to, which she didn't deserve. If I hadn't known there was chance I could see you, I wouldn't have come," he confessed, and leaned in a bit closer.

"I love you. I love you, and I wanna marry you, and spend the rest of my life making up for what I did to you."

I didn't say a word. But suddenly, I had regained control of my extremities, and I took full advantage of that by sitting up and wrapping my arms around his neck to kiss him.

The entire moment was so intense and climactic I heard, in my head, a swelling orchestra of music.

He picked me up and hoisted me onto the bare frame of the couch. It was hard and uncomfortable, but I didn't even notice as he stripped me of my borrowed trousers and slid his own down to his knees. He pushed my shirt up to reveal my stomach and I, supporting his weight on my knees for a split second, divested him of his shirt.

Every inch of me was aching for him, and I pulled him down—fast, hard—and opened my legs to let him in. He entered me, filled me, and I cried out, not caring who heard.

He lowered his mouth to my breast and nipped at me, every tiny bite sending a rush of pleasure through my body.

Suddenly, I needed more, and I seized his hips, forcing him further into me. His mouth shot up to mine, and he kissed me, hard, wet, as the arm that wasn't supporting his body moved to replace his mouth on my breast.

"Oh, God," I murmured against his mouth, and he smiled against mine, laughing lightly in an exhale.

He pressed his pelvis into mine, rubbing our bodies together firmly, and we moved together until my breathing got higher in pitch and his got faster.

We came together, and he pushed into me as far as humanly possible, straining against his own body.

Finally, both of us panting for air, he lowered his full weight onto me, and I sighed contentedly. We were still joined, and he pushed into me once, slowly, languidly, before resting his head on the top of my chest, under my chin.

I let my fingers trail the shell of his ear, the cut of his jaw, then pushed at his chin so he lifted his head. His eyes were hooded with fatigue and satisfaction, and he kissed me deeply, then rested his forehead against my shoulder.

At some point, we found a blanket and shifted to the floor, where we fell asleep, exhausted, together on the couch cushions.