Ch. 1: A Stranger in the Rain

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

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen."

There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. 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," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

Outside, the world went on as if nothing had shifted. Inside, everything had.

Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

The door closed softly, but the sound of it stayed with her for a long time.