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“I’m not saying it’s not related. But I don’t think we can consider it a harbinger of doom either. It’s expected to take time to fully heal.”

“And you think I’m overreacting.” Bishop placed her coffee in front of her before taking a seat across the table.

It was the perfect shade of medium brown, presented in one of her favorite mugs, a navy one from a tiny dive bar that inexplicably sold branded coffee mugs.

Every time she drank from it, she couldn’t help but think about Roy’s terrible karaoke obsession and the variety of questionably flavored shots she, Alannah, and Simon would order to endure Roy’s off-key enthusiasm.

She smiled, running her thumb over a familiar chip on the handle.

Bishop must have seen it, because his lips twitched with his own half smile. He ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it just enough to prove it was possible to upend his eternal polish.

Molly continued, determined not to be distracted. “I don’t—I can’t spend every day expecting the worst is going to happen because I have a small headache. I’d like to . . . move on? I can’t constantly expect another stroke. Or for my memories to magically appear inside my head.”

“And yet your doctors have been adamant that with time both could be possible.”

“Possible, but unlikely.”

“It’s not unlikely,” he shot back, expression tense with seriousness.

“What isn’t? Having another stroke or getting my memories back?” It was obvious, painfully so, that he meant her memories. That he refused to consider a future where they never returned. “It’s also possible that they won’t come back,” she said, quieter.

“Don’t say that.” His clenched fist descended to the table. But the momentum of his frustrated slam slowed into something careful and controlled, landing lightly against the wood.

“I’m trying to be reasonable.”

A grimace pulled at his mouth before he schooled his features back to neutral. “It’s only been a few weeks.”

Molly huffed a breath. “Sure feels like a long time.”

“Nowhere near six years.”

Molly frowned.

“You’re more stubborn than this,” Bishop continued when she had no response.

“Excuse me?”

He leaned back against his chair, arms crossed. He tilted his head and lifted a brow: classic Bishop posturing. She’d seen that look many times, almost always preceding a series of insults.

“You’re too stubborn, and I mean that in the best sense of the word, to resign yourself to failure so soon.”

She blinked. That sounded more like a compliment—kind of—than an insult. She struggled to find a response, too distracted by the lines crinkled at the corners of Bishop’s eyes: a smile nowhere near his lips.

“Alright,” he started again, perhaps taking her silence as permission to carry on, “we’ve been very conservative with how much we expose you to. We’ve been taking it very slowly. We could try introducing a little more.”

“I’m not good at being patient, Bishop.”

“I’m well aware.”

Annoyed at the eternal leg up he seemed to have on her, Molly matched his posture, arms crossed and expression haughty as she sat there, waiting for him to suggest what things they could start introducing.

Evidently this pettiness only amused him, because Bishop quirked a smile before rising to refill her coffee.

“Your dad emailed us a gift card for takeout,” he said. A pivot Molly hadn’t been expecting.

“I—he what?”

“It’s for a delivery service, so we can pick the place. Should cover a couple of meals.”