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I understand what she’s offering. I just don’t want it.

“No,” I say.

Her expression shifts, but she doesn’t look embarrassed. “No?”

“I’d have dinner with you. Just not as a date.”

“That sounds suspiciously like friendship.”

“I like friendship.”

“So do I. I was aiming for something else.”

Meredith considers me. “Laura?”

“Yes.”

The answer comes without hesitation. Laura told me she doesn’t think we belong together. She offered me the parts of us she thought could survive without the rest, and I told her no.

That doesn’t mean I don’t still love her.

Meredith is quiet, then nods. “That explains a few things.”

“What things?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“That’s irritating.”

“You’ll survive.”

She picks up her bag. “Submit to the show.”

“I will.”

“And use the red one.”

“The green one is better.”

“It really isn’t.”

“You were more likable before you asked me to dinner.”

She laughs on her way out. “I’ll try to recover from the blow to my ego.”

After Meredith leaves, I put the red painting beside the green one again. I still like the green one better. The colors stay where I wanted them. Nothing in it got away from me.

I stand in front of both paintings for a while. The green one did what I wanted. The red one didn’t, and some of the parts I nearly covered are the parts Meredith saw first.

I choose the photograph of the red one to submit. Then I sit at the worktable with the application open on my phone. Some of it I can read without help. Some words take longer, and one entire sentence makes no sense even after I sound it out twice.

I call Locke. He answers on the fourth ring.

“What does eligible mean?”

He explains it, then waits while I read the sentence again. This time it makes sense.

“Good,” he says.