"Okay," I said.
He blinked. "That's all?"
"What did you want me to say?"
"Something," he said. "More."
"I could give you more if I still needed to," I said. "But I don't think I do." I looked at him steadily. "You were a coward. You were also the person who asked me to describe myself in the dark and told me I was nothing like he'd imagined, and meant it as a good thing, and that was real even if the rest of it went badly. Both things are true. I've stopped needing them to be only one thing."
He looked at me for a long moment.
"You're different," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"I don't mean the wolf. I mean—" He stopped. "You're taking up more space. You always had the room. You just weren't using it."
I thought about the training yard. About *weight forward.* About going toward things i
