Taylor had been furious.
Not performatively. Not elegantly. Furious in the old, dangerous way that made other men lower their eyes. Maya had heard raised voices from the hallway and entered to find Eric standing stiffly by the desk while Taylor stared at him as if deciding which parts of the friendship had been real.
“You manipulated both of us,” Taylor said.
Eric had looked at Maya then, not hiding from her anger. “Yes.”
“What if he’d humiliated me?” she asked.
“I was prepared to stop it.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” Eric said quietly. “It isn’t. It’s the only defense I have.”
The silence after that was long. Then Maya, against every dramatic instinct in herself, sat down.
“Why now?” she asked.
Eric rubbed the back of his neck. “Because I met someone. A teacher. Rachel. She told me last week that I use strategy to avoid sincerity, and I’ve been annoyed by how right she is ever since.” He gave a bleak half-smile. “I figured before I tried to become a decent man for somebody else, I should probably stop lying to the two people whose lives I interfered with most.”
