Ch. 12: A Door Left Open

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

Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. "You shouldn't have come," she said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. "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. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen." 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. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.

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

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. "You shouldn't have come," she 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.