Ch. 2: The Offer

The city never really slept, and tonight neither did he.

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to.

There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do. Money could buy a great many things, she 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. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen."

"You shouldn't have come," she said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do. Money could buy a great many things, she had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

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

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

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do.

"You shouldn't have come," she said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

Tomorrow would ask its questions. Tonight, she let herself simply breathe.