Selene calls again two nights later, unprompted, in the particular quiet hour after Mara's finished the day's filing but before she's ready to try sleeping, and the conversation drifts, without either of them quite planning it, somewhere neither has gone in a long time.
"Can I tell you something," Selene says, partway through an otherwise ordinary catch-up, her voice shifting into a register Mara recognizes instantly — careful, deliberate, the tone Selene uses for things that matter more than their casual delivery suggests.
"Always."
"I've been thinking about us a lot this week. Since you told me about the assignment. About how we actually started." A pause, weighted. "I don't think I've ever told you what that year was like from my side. Not really. I've always let the story be about y
