I look away.
"Tell me about the scar."
"Which one."
"Forearm. Left."
"Knife."
"You were supposed to stop me before it got there, I'm guessing."
"Yeah."
"Did you."
"Not fast enough."
Silence. The lamp hums. Outside somewhere an owl does the thing owls do. I watch his hand on the desk. He's got these long fingers with a callous at the base of the thumb and a dusting of dark hair above the knuckle.
I'm staring.
I know I'm staring.
"Simone."
"Yeah."
"You need to go to bed."
"I'm not tired."
"You're exhausted. You just can't feel it yet."
"Is that a professional assessment."
"It's an observation."
He stands up.
I stand up.
He's close. Closer than he was an hour ago when he leaned on the doorframe. The office is small and the desk is between us, but he's come around it and now the only thing between us is about two feet of floorboards and the air we're both trying to pretend isn't doing what it's doing.
"You keep looking at me like that," he says, voice low, "and this weekend's going to get complicated."
"Like what."
"Like you know something you didn't know three hours ago."
I swallow.
I could deny it. The smart thing is to deny it. Laugh it off, walk out, close the door, pretend the text from Tremblay reset the board.
I'm not the smart thing.
"I know what you are, Gray."
"Yeah."
