this night is stolen, I want grand larceny and this is petty theft. “I can’t give you that,” she said, but he only heard it after he felt it, the shutting of the doors and barring of the windows. Somewhere inside her she was triple-checking the locks, swallowing whatever keys remained, tossing them into flames and melting them down to be fashioned as jewelry, as armor, as chains. She was remaking herself as a vault and he felt it, the way she drifted away from him, even before she slid her hand from his.
