Page 107

“Right.”

“I’ve finished the survey work. Feig’s greenlit for phase two, and he doesn’t need me for it.” He speaks cleanly, evenly. “I’ve got other projects waiting. I’ve been putting them off.”

“Mason.” My voice is as level as his. “What are you doing?”

“I’m telling you I’m leaving.”

I stand up. Not in anger. In the way you stand up when you need to see someone at eye level because you need to know what you’re actually looking at.

“Don’t go,” I say.

Something crosses his face. Gone before I can understand it.

“Taya.” He says my name the way he said it in Ignacio, in Wíitsin’s kitchen with love and regret. “This was—it was always temporary. That’s what we said.”

“That’s what we said at the beginning. Before⁠—”

“Before what?” His voice is careful. “Before what happened between us? It was⁠—”

“Don’t.” I raise my hand to silence him, take one step toward him. “Don’t tell me what it was.”

He studies me for a long moment.

He doesn’t look cold.

That’s the thing that I’m going to carry—whatever this is, wherever it goes, that’s what I’m going to come back to.

He doesn’t look cold or unaffected. He looks like a man standing in front of a door he’s closed himself and can’t explain why he did it.

“I don’t love you,” he grits the words out.

The room goes very still.

“Liar.”

“Taya—”

“I’m not a coward.” I turn back to the desk. I pick up the report. My hands are steady. I am extraordinarily good at being steady when I need to be.

“I’m—”

“Be safe, Mason.” I manage to give him a small smile. “And if you can, try and be happy.”

He keeps his eyes on me for a long moment, and then he leaves.

I stand at the desk with the augmented flow report in my hands.

I don’t move for a very long time.

The words on the page don’t resolve into meaning—probably because of the tears in my eyes.

Outside, Main Street goes about its evening. Someone pulls a trailer down toward the feed store. A truck idles outside the Horseshoe.

I set the report down.

I pick up my phone and call Joy.

“What?”