Ch. 19: After the Fall

The morning came in grey and quiet, the way it always did before everything changed.

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."

Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. Nina crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to.

"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. Nina crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do.

There are moments that divide a life into before and after. This was becoming one of them.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Nina said. "I'm asking you to listen." Nina crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to.

She did not sleep that night. There was too much to lose, and far too much to want.