Lita doesn't think about wearing the necklace in the same way she doesn't think about breathing. To not feel it's slight weight on her chest day in and day out would crush her. Lita hadn't consciously thought about what wearing it to the Dog Park would mean to James, what he would feel if he saw it. Not because it wasn't important or she had forgotten it's presence but because it was as much a part of her as her head or hands or heart.
His hands reach out, fingertips glancing off the dangling pendent. Lita's breath catches in her throat; she's arrested by his closeness and devastated by the transformation that comes over him. She's questioned everything he's said and done since that day they killed the patrolmen but there's no doubting his suffering in that moment. She doesn't know how she knows but it's real and her heart aches with it. His hands pull back and fall away and Lita feels the loss keenly. She's a mirror to his anguish; tears swim in front of her vision and she bows her head, blinking them back. She's desperate to hide her weakness but even if he can't see her wet eyelashes, there's no hiding the quiet sob that escapes when she speaks.
"...I know," Lita says and if she hadn't believed it before, she believes it now. But believing it doesn't make things any less broken. "I know you're sorry. I see that, now. God, James, there was so much I wanted for us and I hate that you took that away. But I don't hate you. I...could never hate you."
The word she almost said, the word she feels even still, hangs on her lips and biting it back takes all the strength Lita's weary body has left. Her hands go to the pendent, feeling the warmth of her skin impregnated in the quartz and metal even as she's cold inside. She sees herself that fateful day, crawling on her hands and knees, pawing through the dirt. Red clay dust sticking to the trail of tears on her cheeks and knuckles scraping the macadam until finally she finds the broken necklace she had tore from her neck. She had clutched it to her chest, then. She does the same thing now.
"I thought," Lita murmurs, threading her fingers through the chain, the pendent pressing against her palm. She can't look at him. If she can't see him, it's almost as if she's talking to herself. "I thought it was lost...broken beyond repair. I thought I was ready to throw it away."
Lita chances a look up at James' face but quickly dips her chin back to her chest, tucking the lovingly crafted token back underneath her shirt. The fact that she wears it now, has been wearing it all this time, speaks volumes. The implication is clear enough, even if she can't bring herself to say it. They are broken. James shattered the fragile, strange, beautiful thing they had made for themselves. But, maybe, one day, there was a chance it could be mended.
"I should...I should probably go," Lita says, clearing her throat roughly. She has vague plans of going back to the chapel but she knows there are no extra beds. She might find a lawn chair to curl up in and rest her tired head and feet but it doesn't matter, not really; she knows she won't sleep. She means to stand but doesn't.