BELLA'S POV
The letting-go was deliberate, I could feel it, the conscious decision, the hand releasing in the particular way of something that has been told to release rather than something that wanted to. Under two seconds of contact, total. Probably under one and a half.
He stepped back.
I stayed where I was.
The corridor was twelve inches wider than it had been a moment ago and the twelve inches felt like a significant quantity of space.
"Sorry," he said. His voice was exactly the same. The perfect, practiced level of it, the register that never changed, that I had been learning to read underneath for weeks. Under the evenness, something was working.
"It's fine," I said. "The notepad…"
"I have it."
He bent and picked it up from the floor. He straightened and held it out. I took
