Elowen's POV
For a moment I couldn't find the right word for what I was feeling.
There was a bitter taste at the back of my throat, sharp and unpleasant, and the part of my chest that had been warm and full twenty minutes ago in the corridor felt like it had been quietly hollowed out.
I sat with my fork in my hand and looked at my plate, and the plate looked back, and the conversation went on around me in the easy, self-satisfied way of people who had just resolved something they had been meaning to settle for a while.
I hadn't even known they were that close. And somehow the table had moved from pleasantries to engagement dates as though it were a matter of scheduling a meeting.
I set my fork down and picked it up and set it down again, made myself eat two more bites, then gave up be
