Ch. 11: Between Us

She had promised herself she would not come back to this place. She had promised a lot of things.

"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.

"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.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. 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. 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. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to.

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

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen." Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to. Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way she was watching without seeming to.

She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

He watched her go and understood, too late, that he had already made his choice.