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Mari dropped her chin to her chest. “I doubt I’d ask… ever!”

“But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you.”

“Thinking,” Mari replied, “is a thousand miles away from asking. I doubt I’ll ever see him again. This was the first time I’d seen him. I think he said he goes on different days.”

“Then go on a day he’s there.” Reiko gave her a nudge. “It can’t hurt.”

“He’s a patient!”

“You’re not his doctor or his nurse,” Reiko laughed. “This isn’t an ethics thing.”

“He walked me out to the car,” Mari explained. “He was polite.”

“Polite could be interest.” Reiko countered her argument. “What’s the harm putting yourself in his path? If he’s interested…”

“I don’t know,” Mari groaned. “This,” she looked at her friend, “this is why I like being here… alone.”

The look on Reiko’s face called bullshit.

“Do you really like being alone?”

The question hung in the air of the tiny house, the place that held so many memories of her parents. The place she’d grown up in and come back to after the accident.

Now the room felt bigger than it used to, the air around her quieter than it had ever been.

She liked that.

Right?

Reiko moved beside her and put her arm around her back.

“You don’t have to be here alone like this. Your mom and dad would be okay with whatever you want to do.”

Ebi added her own comment to the suggestion by tipping her head back and yowled.

“See?” Reiko gestured at their feet with her free hand. “Ebi wants you to live your life!”

Mari raised a brow and looked down just in time to see Ebi raise a claw to swipe at her foot.

Lifting her foot, she narrowly escaped being sliced by the orange striped cat.

“Looks like I was blocking her way to a few pieces of food she scattered on the ground.”

Reiko sighed. “Seriously. You need to get out of the house and do… something.”

Mari gestured toward the hallway.

“I work from home. I drive the hellion to the rehab center. I… I do stuff.”

“Ugh.” Reiko shook her head. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

Yes.

Yes, it was, but it was easy.

Ish.

When Ebi wasn’t trying to skin her alive, they got along okay.