You blink once. Then again.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
Your knees feel weak, but rage is an excellent spine. It keeps you upright when trust can’t.
You remember the day you met him with humiliating clarity. It had been raining. Your umbrella had turned inside out in the wind outside St. Gabriel Community Arts Center, where you were dropping off a box of donated linens from the clinic where you worked part-time. You were trying to get back into the street before anyone had a chance to stare. You always moved quickly in public, like speed could blur your face into something easier for strangers to digest.
Then music spilled from one of the practice rooms. Piano first, then a male voice, low and patient, guiding children through a hymn.
You had paused at the doorway because the sound was beautiful and because he was there, seated at the piano, his face turned slightly toward the children, those dark glasses resting on his nose. One of the little girls had tripped over a backpack strap, and he’d smiled in the direction of her tears before they even fell, as if he could hear emotions before they arrived. When you helped her up, he asked who you were in a voice so gentle it undid something in you.
That was the beginning.
Or so you thought.
“You’re lying,” you say now, but your voice has shrunk. “You’re saying this to make it sound smaller. To make it sound like fate instead of betrayal.”
“No,” he says. “I’m telling you because if I don’t tell you everything tonight, I’ll lose you anyway.”
You almost tell him that he’s already lost you.
Continued on the next page
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