Chapter 117

• I asked to meet in a place that didn’t carry memory. Neutral, clean, and quiet. A bookstore café tucked between two buildings in a part of the city that hadn’t changed much in twenty years. The kind of place where no one rushed and no one leaned too far in. Julian walked me there but stayed outside when I went in. He knew I needed to do this myself.
• She was already seated when I arrived.
• She had chosen the back corner. Her coat was folded neatly over the chair beside her. No makeup, no jewelry. She looked younger than I expected, and older too, in that way people sometimes do when they’ve spent years proving they mattered and not quite believing it.