The museum didn’t leave when I stepped out of my dress. It clung to me the way certain nights do—quietly, insistently, like a hand on your back you can still feel long after you’ve walked away. I washed my face and the marble was still under my heels. I brushed my teeth and the chandelier kept glittering in the corners of my head. I lay down and closed my eyes and the room replayed itself in layers: glass, gold, polite laughter, a mobile shaking out its balanced bones in air that smelled like stone and citrus. Rafe’s smile ghosted every reflective surface, not as fear but as a reminder that curiosity can be a blade when it wants to be.
But louder than all of that was Branson, in the car afterward, saying I’m proud of you. The sentence had no garnish. He didn’t dress it up. He handed it to
