“They still do.”
“Yes,” he says. “But maybe not every second.”
I shake my head.
The movement is too small to be convincing.
“You don’t understand.”
“No,” he says. “Not properly.”
That is better than if he had said he did.
Worse too, somehow.
Outside the office, someone says something about toast. Kev answers, rough but trying. There is the faint scrape of a chair, the clink of mugs, the station putting itself back into small pieces of ordinary.
In here, my hands are shaking.
I curl them against the desk edge.
AJ sees.
Of course he sees.
He sets his own mug down on the filing cabinet beside him.
Slowly.
Clearly.
As if sudden movement might spook me.
As if I am an injured animal.
“Pippa,” he says.
“Don’t.”
It comes out sharper than I mean.
His face does not change.
“All right.”
“I don’t need—”
“I'm not going to.”
“You don’t.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t. But I know you don’t need me to tell you it’s okay, because it isn’t. I know you don’t need me to say you did everything you could, even though you did. And I know you definitely don’t need me standing here looking tragic and useless.”
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then I push away from the desk, because standing braced against it has started to feel like surrender. I mean to straighten. To turn. To say something brisk and sensible and final.
Instead, my hand comes up to my mouth.
