It feels like I am walking towards my own funeral as I enter the mall and walk closer and closer to the escalator at the far end. Better it be the one on the far end than the one that leads directly to Bookstairs. Any minute that I can put between me and the conversation I have to have with Patrick is crucial to me. I need to wrap my head around what I will tell him. How I am going to tell him. How I will confess to what I have done and how I have betrayed him.

I almost can’t bear the thought of losing him as the...