The next morning, Garrett was actually home, another rare occurrence. He had ordered breakfast from the upscale bakery bistro across town that I had wanted to try for months, the place he never had time to visit with me.
In the past, I would have walked on air for days, convincing myself that somewhere beneath his ambition, he still cared. Now, that hollow reassurance meant nothing.
Garrett placed a warm almond pastry onto my plate. "Vespera, everything said last night was meant for your own benefit. Those competitions, that collegiate recognition, all of it belongs to the past. Any junior engineer straight out of school can generate equivalent architectures in ten minutes using modern automated tools." He reached across the table and placed his hand over mine. "You have been away from i
