Or…sort of a stranger.
The blue wasn’t quite right. She’d thought it would match the Montana sky—that endless stretch of pale cerulean that made Whitefish feel like living inside a snow globe—but the fabric was deeper. Richer. Almost navy where she’d wanted cerulean.
She smoothed the skirt with both hands and tried not to think about why that mattered.
Packed my blue dress. The one that matches Montana sky.
Why had she told him that? In two years, she’d never shared anything that concrete. No descriptions. No locations. Their mutual anonymity was the foundation of everything. Safety in shadows.
And then she’d gone and mentioned a dress.
Her fingers tapped against her thigh—da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM—iambic pentameter keeping time with her racing thoughts. She caught herself and stopped.
“Digital archival systems represent the intersection of traditional cataloging methodology and emerging cloud-based infrastructure,” she said to her reflection, practicing the opening line of her presentation. The words came out perfectly, exactly as she’d written them six weeks ago. She could see the document in her mind, black text on white background, the particular way she’d indented the bullet points.
She stopped mid-sentence.
The dress. She’d told him about the dress.
Morgan pressed her palms flat against the bathroom counter and leaned forward until her breath fogged the mirror. Her green-hazel eyes stared back at her, shifting toward amber in the harsh fluorescent light.
It’s just data.
The best things always are.
She’d meant it when she wrote it. The best things in herlife had always been data—books and codes and patterns she could trust to stay constant. People changed their minds. People forgot. People found her unsettling and pulled away.
But Binary noticed when her typing shifted into waltz time.
Binary noticed everything.
Morgan grabbed her conference badge and her presentation notes and headed down to breakfast.
The buffet line moved slowly, bodies pressing too closely together in the narrow space between the scrambled eggs and the fruit display. Morgan kept her elbows tucked against her sides and focused on loading her plate with things she wouldn’t actually eat.
A woman in a green cardigan bumped into her from behind.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! These lines are ridiculous, aren’t they?”
Morgan turned. Mid-fifties, reading glasses on a beaded chain, conference badge identifying her as Patricia Holbrook from the Bozeman Public Library. They’d spoken yesterday in the registration line.
“They really should have set up two stations,” Morgan said. “You mentioned the same thing yesterday when we were waiting for our badges—you said it reminded you of the checkout lines at your branch before you implemented the self-service kiosks.”
Patricia’s smile faltered.
“You also said your daughter just had twins, and you’re hoping to take some vacation time in August to help out. You were wearing a yellow blouse with small flowers on it, and you’d just finished a lemon scone.”
Silence stretched between them. Patricia’s expression shifted from confused to unsettled in the space of a breath.
“I… How do you remember all that?”
Morgan felt the familiar clench in her chest. The one that meant she’d done it again—let too much slip, revealed too much of what lived behind her eyes.
“Good memory,” she said, trying to laugh it off. “Librarian habit, right? Remembering patron preferences?”
Patricia laughed too, but it was the wrong kind of laugh. The kind that meantyou’re strangeandplease stop.
“Well,” Patricia said, “I’d better find a seat. Nice seeing you again.”
