Ch. 11: Between Us

If someone had told her a year ago that she would be standing here, she would have laughed.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Nina said. "I'm asking you to listen." For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

She thought of all the versions of herself she might have been, and wondered which one he saw.

"You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to.

Whatever came next, there would be no pretending it had not begun.