“Learning.”
Ellie turned toward me.
“I’m not asking you to stay.”
“I know.”
“I’m also not asking you to leave.”
“I understand.”
“I need time to work out how I feel when there aren’t strangers searching for photographs of my dead sister.”
The bluntness of it left no room for performance.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
It was not forgiveness.
But it was not nothing.
Rachel checked the road through the front window.
“We should leave before the photographers arrive.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Twenty minutes, if traffic is kind.”
“Traffic has never been kind.”
“Then fifteen.”
I looked at Ellie.
“Was any of it—”
I stopped.
She waited.
“Was it real for you?” I asked.
The question felt unfair the moment I said it.
Ellie’s face changed.
“Of course it was.”
Relief hit hard enough to make me dizzy.
“That’s why this hurts,” she added.
There it was.
No easy escape.
