# THOMPSON-HAYES: THE INSIDE OUT
## Chapter Sixteen — Ethan Returns
Ethan called on a Tuesday.
She almost did not answer. She looked at his name on the screen for three full seconds and had the specific quick internal negotiation that his name always produced now — not dread, not warmth, something in between that she had never found a clean word for.
She answered.
"I need to tell you something," he said. No greeting. That was how he called now — directly, as though the greetings were weight they could no longer afford.
"Tell me," she said.
"Not on the phone." A pause. "Can I come to Austin?"
"When?"
"Thursday."
She looked at her calendar. Period two and four. Board call at noon. Nothing she could not work around.
"Thursday afternoon," she said. "Four o'clock."
She told Nathan t
