Page 49

“No,” she said. “You shouldn’t have.”

The sentence was clean because it was true.

I nodded once.

“I know.”

She shifted the strap of her camera bag higher on her shoulder.

“I had to leave,” she said.

Not an apology. Not a defense. Just a fact.

“I know that too.”

We stood there, the building humming around us. Neither of us moved toward the exit, and neither of us moved toward each other.

“I was having a bad day,” I said. “That’s not an excuse. It’s just what happened.”

“Brick told me.”

Of course he had. Brick, who saw everything and could not help trying to keep people from bleeding out in separate corners.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

The question hit me somewhere I did not have armor.

She asked me if I was okay. Not are you sorry. Not what the hell were you thinking. Are you okay? Like my well-being still mattered to her despite what I had done to hers.

I had a dozen acceptable answers. Better. Working. Nothing useful.

“I’m working on it,” I said.

The most honest thing I had said in days.

Then I made myself add the part that mattered.

“You don’t have to ask me that.”

Her gaze held mine.

“I know.”

The words sat between us. Small. Careful. Not forgiveness. Not repair. But not nothing.

“I don’t want to make this about my guilt,” I said.

Her expression shifted, barely. Interest, maybe. Or caution.

“Good,” she said.

The corner of my mouth moved. She had earned that much.

“I owe you more than this,” I said. “I know that.”

“Yes,” she said. “You do.”

The truth held steady between us. No cruelty. No softness.