She regarded the question as if testing whether it fit within acceptable margins. Then, with a softness he hadn't expected, she answered: "The rule that I cannot be surprised."
"Stay for a minute," he offered. The words sounded like more than they were—a small experiment in brave civility.
She blinked, a soft, startled sound. "I—sorry. The bus…"
The words were not unkind. They were simply precise. He read them twice as if the second reading would add warmth by repetition. He wanted to understand the shape of her absence. He wanted more than anything to press his palm against the paper and feel the imprint of her hand, the ghost of the way she would have written an apology if she'd thought one due.