Sarah Hogle

He calls it his office or his study and in my head I still call it the drawing room, because in a past life I was a duchess and I’ve never quite gotten over being reborn as a commoner in this age.

He raises his eyes to mine. “Because I think you’re beautiful no matter what.”
Ugh. That’s really low, even for him.

We’ve always been balanced that way: when one of us loses it, the other can’t. Whoever didn’t call dibs on instant hysterics has no choice but to keep it together.

“God, I’ve missed you. Naomi.”

“I say it all the time, I just say it very, very quietly. I tell you when you’re in another room, or right after we hang up the phone. I tell you when you’ve got headphones on. I say it after you shut the door behind you. I say it in my head every time you look at me.”

I’ve been stewing in all the ways I’ve been wronged for so long now that my simmering resentment has outgrown itself to taint everything about him, even the innocent parts.

It’s an empty gesture, a dark condemnation. In all the places it’s supposed to please, it stings instead.

It’s not fair to be hurt or angry over something he didn’t even say, especially since the words I put into my own head are all true, but knowing he potentially could say it—and probably will—is enough to make me sink into a dark silence that I don’t rise from for the rest of the ride home.

Nothing.

It’s a self-appointed martyr’s answer. It ensures that the issue goes unresolved, and that I suffer all by myself. What do I get out of saying nothing?

in my head I still call it the drawing room, because in a past life I was a duchess and I’ve never quite gotten over being reborn as a commoner in this age.