Ch. 16: The Other Side of Truth

He noticed her before she noticed him, which was usually how the worst trouble began.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Nina said. "I'm asking you to listen." 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.

"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.

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do.

There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

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