“That’s what I’m sayin’,” I replied with a small shake of my head. “It wasn’t random. It was curated at some point, even if it didn’t look like it on the surface. Somebodybuilt that collection with intention, then… somehow it just ended up there.”
I sat back, the energy easing out of it just a little.
“That’s the part I keep thinking about,” I added. “Not just what it is, but how it got from being important to somebody to sitting in a room waiting to be picked through.”
“That sounds familiar,” she said, something quieter under the words.
I caught it but didn’t push back on it.
“For what I’m trying to build,” I added, “it matters. It gives me something real to start with.”
She nodded slowly, her fingers curling loosely around the stem of her glass.
“I’m glad you went,” she said. “It seemed important to you.”
“It was,” I said. “It helped me see things a little clearer.”
“And everything else that came with that day?” she asked.
There it was. The question didn’t rise. It settled. I held her gaze, then leaned back into the chair, my shoulders easing into it even while something in my chest stayed tight.
“It was a lot,” I said.
“That’s one way to describe it,” she replied.
A quiet stretched between us that wasn’t uncomfortable but definitely felt deliberate. I glanced down at my hands for a second before looking back up. “When we talked this week,” I said. “I didn’t think—”
“That there was anything to address?” she finished, her tone still even.
I exhaled lightly. “I didn’t think it needed to be a whole conversation before tonight.”
She nodded once, accepting that without agreeing with it.
“I didn’t push it,” she said. “I knew we were seeing each other tonight.”
She shifted slightly on the couch, setting her glass down on the table in front of her before leaning back.
“I’ve been noticing some things,” she said. “Not just last weekend. Pretty much how things have been moving for a while now.”
I sat back, letting her have the space to say it in her own way.
“I think you’ve been trying to show up,” she continued. “And I don’t question that when you’re here, you mean it.”
I nodded once.
“But I also think you’re dividing yourself in a way that doesn’t leave room for this to actually become anything beyond what it already is,” she said.
The words were measured and also very clear. I let out a slow breath, my hands coming together loosely. “That’s fair,” I said.
She studied me for a moment, her gaze steady.
“I don’t beg for attention,” she said in a voice that felt grounded. “And I don’t compete for it either.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I replied.
“I know,” she said. “That’s the point.”
That sat heavier than anything else she had said so far.
