“You wanted London. Bigger things. National stories. Whatever comes next.”
There it is.
The real question under all the others.
“I thought I did,” I say.
Her face goes very still.
“I wanted to be seen,” I continue. “By the right people. In the right places. I wanted to prove I could get there, wherever there was. London. A national desk. A room where no one looked surprised I’d made it.”
She says nothing.
“I still want to do good work. That hasn’t changed. I’m not suddenly noble because I learned where a fire station keeps its biscuits.”
Her mouth twitches faintly.
“But I don’t think good work only exists somewhere else anymore. And I don’t think the life I want is automatically the one that looks most impressive from a distance.”
Her eyes search mine.
I let her.
This is not a pitch. Not an angle. Not a beautifully structured argument designed to win.
It is just the truth, untidy and sleep-deprived in a station corridor.
“You said relationships are only worth it if they improve on being alone,” I say. “I haven’t stopped thinking about that.”
“That was not an invitation to make it your personal mission.”
“I know. But I’d like the chance to try.”
Her throat moves.
For a second, I think she might step back.
Instead, she looks down the corridor towards the kitchen, where someone laughs loudly enough for the sound to carry.
When she looks back, the guardedness is not gone.
Pippa does not drop walls because a man gives one speech in a corridor.
Thank fuck.
I would not trust either of us if she did.
But there is a door open somewhere.
Not the whole way.
Enough.
“You understand I am not rearranging my life because you had a moment in your car.”
“Good. Please don’t. That would be alarming.”
“And I’m not becoming some charming rural chapter in your emotional development.”
