Maya looked at him in the reflected city light. “Do you ever think about the first day at the café?”
“Too often.”
She smiled. “You were so sure of yourself.”
“I was insufferable.”
“You were.”
He accepted it. “You scared me in under ten minutes.”
“I told you some things can’t be won.”
“You were right.”
“I usually am.”
He laughed softly. “There it is.”
They stood in silence for a while, the good kind, the kind earned only after years of saying enough true things that silence stops feeling like danger.
Then Maya said, “I have something else to tell you.”
He turned immediately, alert in that old way that still surfaced when her tone shifted. “What?”
She watched panic begin to rise in him and almost felt guilty. Almost.
“I had my annual review with Dr. Lee this week.”
Taylor’s entire posture changed. “And?”
Maya set down the mug on the small table between them. “And she said if she met me today without knowing my history, she would never guess the condition had once progressed as far as it did.”
