He talked through the Halcyon counteroffer for twenty minutes and I listened and asked questions and gave him what I saw and the whole time I was thinking about what he'd said.
“A particular kind of loneliness.”
He hadn't flinched from it. Hadn't redirected or minimized or done the thing people do when vulnerability lands closer than they planned — he'd just said “yes” and meant it, and that single syllable had done more damage to my carefully maintained internal distance than three weeks of proximity combined.
I was in trouble and I knew it and I kept asking questions about indemnity structures because that was the only responsible thing left to do.
Nora called at two while Roman was on a call and I stepped into the hallway to answer it.
"Tell me everything," she said, skipping the g
