Tracing the rim of her coffee mug, she asked in a low voice, "Did you ever miss me?"
Glancing up from the spreadsheet he’d been half-studying, Jerry said, “Miss what?”
“The war. The chaos. That... edge.”
Leaning back on the chair, considering. “I miss the clarity it forced. The way everything felt urgent. Like every breath mattered.”
Aria nodded slowly. “Yeah. That part.”
The city pulsed with distant light which could be seen from outside the window as silence stretched between them, heavy but not uncomfortable.
“Does that make us broken?” she asked.
“No,” Jerry said. “It makes us aware. There’s a difference.”
There was something unreadable in her eyes as she looked at him. “Sometimes I feel like we’re pretending to be normal people now.”
He smiled faintly. “You think normal peo
