“I want to leave.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” I held the envelope at my side.
“You want to know if I’m going to use this.
You want to know if I’m going to make this expensive and public and damaging to the career you just spent six years building.” I looked at him for a long moment.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
I walked away.
Daniel fell into step beside me.
We crossed the courtyard without speaking.
The crowd had thinned slightly — families drifting toward cars, graduates taking photographs near the entrance arch.
Nobody was watching us.
Or if they were, they had the decency not to show it.
We reached the parking lot.
I stopped beside my car, a ten-year-old Honda that had needed new brake pads for three months and that I had been putting off replacing because the money kept going elsewhere.
“What are you going to do?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know yet.” I unlocked the car and set the envelope on the passenger seat.
“Thank you.
For all of it.
For coming to me today.”
“I should have come sooner.”
“Maybe.
But you came.” I looked at him.
“Cassandra’s sister — is she all right?”
“She’s shaken.
She feels guilty, even though she didn’t do anything wrong.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mia.”
