I close it.
That’s all I can do for a second.
She’s still watching me.
“Griffin,” she says. Slow. Like she’s waiting for the sentence she knows is coming.
“Griffin Novak.”
She goes very still.
“My Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
She sets her fork down.
She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. I watch her face do nothing — she’s not making a face, she’s just sitting with the information, working through it the way she works through a recovery plan.
“How.”
“I — two summers ago. Tampa.”
“How long.”
“Six weeks.”
She closes her eyes.
Just for a second.
When she opens them she looks at me different than she was looking at me a minute ago.
“Six weeks,” she says. Quiet. Almost to herself.
“Yeah.”
“Six weeks, Nova.”
“Yeah.”
She picks up her water. Drinks. Sets it down.
“That fucking prick.”
Said low. Said real. Three words and she means every one of them and her hand is flat on the table now in a way it wasn’t a second ago.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“There’s more.”
“Okay.”
The next part is harder.
I have to climb to it.
I look at my tray. The salad bar plate I assembled forty minutes ago when I had no idea I was about to do this.
