Page 12 of Their Arrangement
I turned slowly.
Loyal stood with his hands in his pockets. His tie was half-loosened, his hair slightly rumpled, like he’d run his fingers through it one too many times today. He wasn’t smiling.
“She said it made her look too polished,” he added. “Said she looked like she belonged to someone else’s life.”
His voice cracked a little. Just a hairline fracture.
He gave a bitter smile. “I liked it. She looked happy.”
I nodded.
Too hard. Too fast.
“She was,” I whispered.
The air shifted between us.
Not heavy. Not cruel.
Just…sad.
The kind of sadness that lives in the walls of old places and old grief.
We stood there in silence.
The hallway pulsed around us—phones ringing, laughter behind closed doors, the distant hum of an espresso machine—but none of it touched us.
Loyal shifted. “You okay?”
I could’ve lied.
Could’ve said yes.
That it was fine. That I was just tired.
But my voice cracked when I whispered, “No.”
He didn’t flinch.
Just nodded.
Short. Quiet.
Not unkind.
But not warm either.
“She wouldn’t want you here,” he said after a moment.
I flinched.
He caught it and winced. “I mean—this place. This world. She tried to keep you outside of it.”
“I know.”
“She used to say you were the only real thing she had.”
My breath caught.
