(Isla)
He left when the fire burned low.
Not abruptly. He stood, said goodnight, and walked out and pulled the door behind him and his footsteps went down the corridor the same way they always did, unhurried and without looking back. I sat by the window for a while after he was gone and looked at the chair he'd been sitting in and thought about the conversation we'd just had.
He'd asked me what I liked.
Nobody had ever asked me that before. Not once in twenty years. The question had sat in front of me like something I didn't have the right equipment to answer and I'd given him the only honest thing I had, rain through a door that wasn't leaking, and he had listened like it was worth listening to and said it was enough and meant it.
I picked up the book from my lap and set it on the ta
