Reid excused himself saying he had to get to the rescue center. He touched her shoulder once on his way to the door. She didn't flinch.
I came here.
It was the right call. It was also the moment I finished making a decision I had been approaching for days. She is going through something. Jace is attracted to her. Reid too, in his way. And I can see clearly when adding my weight to a situation helps it and when it doesn't.
I will stay out of this.
She moves to the other desk. Her desk. Sets her mug down, tucks one foot underneath her, opens her sketchbook. And runs the palm of her hand once across the surface of the wood before she starts drawing.
"Is the location all right?" I ask. "I wasn't sure about the angle from the window."
"It's perfect." She doesn't look up. "The light is good."
I put my glasses on and look at my screen.
The numbers I've been working with for the past hour are still there. Acquisition projections, revenue modelling, sales targets.They were close to making sense before she walked in. I read the same line three times and it continues to mean nothing.
I move a column. I move it back.
She's drawing. I can hear the pencil, the specific rhythm of it. Short strokes and then longer ones, a pause where she stops and considers something before she continues. I keep my eyes on my screen.
I redo a calculation I already completed correctly.
This goes on. The scratch of graphite on heavy paper becomes background noise I am tracking with disproportionate precision. I know when the strokes are long and deliberate. I know when they shorten. I know when she pauses to look at whatever reference she's using.
I don't look up to see what the reference is.
At some point the rhythm changes. Shorter intervals. The pauses begin happening in a pattern that doesn't match the drawing process I've been listening to. They feel directed. They carry the specific weight of someone looking up from their work at a fixed point.
I keep my eyes on my screen. The cursor blinks on the same cell it's been blinking on for twenty minutes.
Another pause. Longer this time. I can feel the attention on me the way you feel a shift in barometric pressure. Skin-level. Precise.
I take my glasses off and press two fingers to the bridge of my nose.
"We shouldn't have done it without telling you."
She stops drawing.
I look at her. "We thought Mrs. Smith would be more receptive coming from us. We've known her a long time. That's no excuse." I set my glasses on the desk. "We crossed a line."
She's quiet for a moment. She sets her pencil down flat on the sketchbook and looks at me directly. Her eyes are green in the window light.
"You did," she says. "But it came from a good place."
She pauses.
"It's been a long time since someone was kind to me." Her voice is steady but the words arrive with effort, each one placed down carefully. "I didn't recognize it. I reacted to something that wasn't there." She looks at the desk. Runs one finger along the edge of it, tracing the grain of the wood. "It was a thoughtful thing to do. I'm sorry I couldn't see that this morning."
Something that's been holding in my chest since this morning lets go. All at once, like a bolt sliding free.
"You don't need to apologize," I say.
"I think I do."
We look at each other. The light from the window catches the side of her face, and I notice the specific line of her jaw, the way it cuts clean from ear to chin.
She picks up her pencil. I put my glasses back on. We return to work.
