The wine was a 2019 Barolo that Dane had been saving for something he considered worthy of it, which was his way of telling me without telling me that he thought the Paris situation qualified as significant enough to open the good bottle. I had accepted the glass with the acknowledgment of a man who understood the gesture and appreciated it without being in the emotional state to fully receive it, which was the state I had been in since approximately six this morning when I left my own bedroom to avoid feeling something I did not have the infrastructure for.
Dane's apartment was familiar in the way of spaces you have spent time in under pressure. Not comfortable exactly, functional, the apartment of a man who had arranged his environment to serve his work rather than his ease, clean lines
