Now I agonized over what to do, how to salvage the situation. A small voice inside my head pleaded, I never left! I never left! I chose to stay! But I wasn’t sure about that last. It was more accurate to say I had simply been incapable of leaving, which is not quite the same thing.
Still, neither of us moved. I felt a shiver of something pass through my body, something that was part resistance and part something else, something more—positive. I was still uncertain, but, when the impulse came, I obeyed.
I got down on all fours, and reached up, holding out the keys again. I looked up somewhat, but not to his face. I saw his hand come down as if to take the proffered keys. But when I made to put them into his hand, at the last moment he withdrew it, and the keys fell to the floor.
My face
