Johnson’s question stayed between us long after the words left his mouth.
“So what happens to me now that you’re back with him?”
The office hummed around us—keyboards, distant voices, the low whir of machines that never stopped working—but everything else felt muted. As if the world had leaned back, waiting.
I didn’t answer immediately.
Not because I didn’t care.
Because for the first time, I understood that whatever I said next would change something permanently.
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
Johnson studied my face, not searching for reassurance, not pushing. Just… reading. He always did that. Observed without interfering.
“That’s an honest answer,” he said.
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
He nodded once, slow. Accepting. That al
