Fiona
Archie texted me a week after I learned about the hospital bill, a simple message asking if I'd meet him at the botanical garden that Saturday, nothing more elaborate than that, no explanation offered beyond the request itself. I stared at my phone for a long time before finally typing back my answer, my heart pounding with a mixture of hope and lingering fear that I hadn't fully managed to shake since the day everything fell apart in his study.
I found him waiting near the entrance when I arrived, dressed casually, his hands shoved into his pockets the same nervous way they had been at the café weeks earlier. Something in his expression looked steadier now, though, less desperate, more deliberate, like a man who had spent real time thinking through exactly what he wanted to say ra
