Ch. 16: The Other Side of Truth

The letter had arrived without a name, and that was the first thing that frightened her.

"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.

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.

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. Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. Money could buy a great many things, she had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. Money could buy a great many things, she had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

He had built his whole life on being certain. She had a way of making certainty feel like a cage.