Page 42

A beat. Two. The library is dead around us.

“Write that,” he says. “Put it in the defense. Exactly that.”

“It’s not a defense yet, it’s just —”

“It’s true. So write it.” He looks back at the screen. “That’s what Adler wants. The true thing.”

I write it. My hand’s not entirely steady. I don’t acknowledge that. He doesn’t acknowledge that he noticed. We work for another hour in the specific silence of two people who’ve just said something to each other that neither of them said out loud.

At twelve-thirty he starts closing windows. The signal. I’m packing my bag. I should be leaving — seven-thirty, practice at three, a thousand reasons. Instead, I sit there with my bag in my lap while he shuts down his laptop. The room is very quiet.

“So,” I say. Even. Bright but not fully. The performance is tired tonight. “Charleston.”

He looks at me.

“My mother wants me home next weekend.” I keep going before I can stop myself. “The whole family thing. My sister has news. It’s going to be a lot. In the specific way that family things are a lot.” I hear myself doing it — the explaining-away, the making-it-small-so-it’s-easier-to-say. “I know it’s the last thing you need right now. And I know it doesn’t fit —” I gesture vaguely. I can’t quite say arrangement anymore. The word tastes wrong. “I don’t want to go alone.”

I say it before I can dress it up. It comes out simpler than I planned — no project scaffolding, no cover story, no careful qualifying. Just the true thing, sitting in the glass room at twelve-thirty in the morning.

“That’s the honest part,” I say. “And I’m asking you specifically because —” I stop. I hear myself getting ready to bury it in logistics again, and I don’t. “Because you’ve seen the bad runs. You’ve seen the parts of me I don’t perform for anyone. And I think I trust you with this part too.” A beat. Then, because I can’t entirely help it: “There’s also the project, if you need a practical reason. We have three weeks left and we could work on the drive. That’s also true. But it’s not why I’m asking.”

He’s looking at me the whole time. With the open interior. He can hear the part I’m not saying. I don’t want to do this alone. You’re the person I want there. I’m terrified of both those sentences.

“Yeah,” he says. Before I’ve finished. Not even a pause. Just yeah, quiet and certain. Like the answer was already there. Like I only needed to ask.

“Yeah?” I blink. “I haven’t finished —”

“Don’t need to.” He picks up his bag. “When are we leaving?”

“It’s Charleston, South Carolina.” I say it gently. “That’s a ten-hour drive. We’re flying. I’ll get the tickets.”

He goes still. “I’ll pay for mine.”

“Theo —”

“I’ll pay for my own ticket, Margo.”

I look at him. He looks back. I know what this is. He keeps a tally of every dollar that comes in and goes out, and adding me to that ledger is not something he’s going to do without a fight. I understand it. I respect it. I’m also not letting it happen.

“It’s my trip,” I say. “You’re doing me the favor. I’m buying the ticket.”

A beat. Something moves behind his eyes. The pride and the practicality working it out.

“Fine,” he says. Quiet. Not happy. But done.

“Theo.” He pauses, bag on his shoulder. Looking back at me. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t have to thank me.”

“I know.” I hold his eyes for one more second. “I know.”

He goes. The door closes softly. The way he does everything when he’s trying not to wake somebody. I sit in the empty glass room for a minute. I don’t think about what any of it means. I do a very bad job of it.

Red light on Main Street. Twelve-fifty in the morning. The town gone quiet around me. The heater going. The radio off.

And I’m smiling.

Not the bright one. Not the performance. The other kind. The involuntary kind. The kind that starts in the chest before it gets to the mouth. The same one from the six a.m. text. The same one from Burlington. The same one I’ve been catching and stopping and catching again for three weeks.