“I don’t know yet. I’m still thinking about it.”
“Well.” Something ugly passed across his face. “Don’t let me stop you. You’re good at leaving for better opportunities.”
I stepped back, stung.
I stared at him, hurt giving way to anger. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” He started to walk away.
“No.” I followed him into an empty hallway, my heels clicking against the floor. “You don’t get to make comments like that and then walk away. What’s your problem?”
“My problem?” Cassian turned, and his expression was raw with emotions he’d clearly been suppressing. His eyes were bright, his hands clenched at his sides. “You’re talking about leaving again. Just like before. A shiny new opportunity comes along and suddenly everything you have isn’t good enough.”
“This has nothing to do with before.”
“It has everything to do with it.” His voice rose, echoing in the empty corridor. “You did this exact same thing five years ago. We finally had something stable, something we were building together, and you chose a fellowship over our marriage.”
“I chose my career. And you chose yours. Don’t rewrite history to make yourself the victim.”
“I stayed, Calla. I wanted to stay. You left.”
“Because you made a decision about our future without asking what I wanted. You accepted Obsidian and expected me to rearrange my life around your plans.”
“And you took the fellowship without considering what it would do to us.”
“I considered it.” My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. “I considered it every single day. I just made a different choice than the one you wanted.”
We stood there in the hallway, five years of unspoken resentment finally spilling into the open. His chest was heaving. My hands were shaking. The space between us felt charged, electric with anger and something else underneath. Something that had never really gone away.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You’re with someone else. You’ve moved on. What I do with my career is none of your business anymore.”
“You’re right.” Cassian’s expression shuttered. “It’s not my business. Take the job. Leave. It’s what you’re good at.”
I flinched. The accusation burrowed under my skin, sharper than I wanted to admit.
Then he shook his head, dragging a hand through his hair. Some of the anger drained from his face, replaced by exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was unfair. This is a good opportunity for you.”
“Cassian.”
“I mean it. I’m sorry.”
He walked away before I could respond.
I stood alone in the hallway, hands trembling, wondering how a simple lunch had spiraled into this. Wondering why his anger had felt like grief. Why his cruelty had sounded like heartbreak.
That night, I found Felice in our kitchen, pouring two glasses of wine.
She took one look at my face and pushed the fuller glass toward me. “That bad?”
“Worse.”
We settled onto the couch in the living room, the city lights glittering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Felice tucked her legs underneath her and waited, the way she always did when she knew I needed to talk but couldn’t find the opening.
I told her everything. The lunch. The job offer. The confrontation in the hallway. Cassian’s face when he’d accused me of being good at leaving.
“He’s jealous,” she said when I finished.
