“You’re impossible,” she muttered into the fabric.
“Been told that.”
I shifted, angling down to catch her eye.
“What do you like? Or liked. Before all this.”
She hesitated.
That didn’t surprise me. Libby didn’t hand out pieces of herself easily. Every bit I’d gotten so far had come the hard way—through what she did, not what she said.
But after a second, she exhaled slowly and leaned back just enough to look up at me.
“I read,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Figured that one.”
She gave me a look.
“I read a lot,” she added, a hint of defensiveness sharpening the words.
“What kind?”
Her mouth twitched.
“Everything. But mostly fiction. Escapism, I guess.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
She studied me for a beat, deciding something behind those eyes.
Then—
“I didn’t really have much else,” she admitted quietly.
“When I got arrested… I lost the few friends I had. John had made sure there weren’t many to begin with.”
The words landed heavier than her voice carried them.
I didn’t speak. Just listened.
“They all disappeared,” she continued, calm but distant. “Which, I guess makes sense. No one wants to stand next to someone like that.”
My jaw tightened on its own.
“And when you were cleared?”
She let out a small, humorless breath.
“They didn’t come back. Honestly, it was for the best. They were always more his friends than mine anyway. I think they were just spying for him. They were never really on my side.”
Quiet settled in around that.
I adjusted my hold, my hand pressing more firmly against the small of her back. She leaned into me—barely—but I caught it.
“That’s on them,” I said.
