I hadn’t meant for him to hear. But, with those long ears, I should have known better.
“I don’t,” Elmir says, just as soft. I have to strain to hear him over the creaking carriage.
“You don’t?” I look over to him, but he’s still turned toward the window.
“If things were different, you wouldn’t have been you.” He finally looks back to me. His once icy eyes are now tepid pools as inviting and warm as the creeks I would strip bare and swim in underneath the redwood trees deep in the forests around the temple. “And I’ve found I’m very fond of exactly the woman you are. I wouldn’t change a single thing.”
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t. I peel my eyes away from his and look to the window. Elmir returns to his journal. And I silently thank the carriage for being noisy enough
