Chapter 8: What Priya Sees

The silence stretched.

"It's in my bag," I said finally. "It doesn't mean anything. I forgot to leave it in the drawer."

"You forgot."

"Priya."

"You stacked three Post-it notes on top of it telling yourself no, and then you forgot to leave it behind." Her voice was not sharp. That was the worst part. It was gentle, almost clinical, the voice of someone laying out evidence rather than passing judgment. "Ada, I love you. I am not trying to make you feel small. I am trying to make sure you see what I'm seeing."

I pulled my bag onto my lap. Unzipped the inside pocket. Took out the card and set it on the table between us, face-up, his name catching the candlelight.

"There," I said. "Now it's not hidden."

Priya looked at the card. Did not touch it.

"That's not what I meant," she said.

"What do you want me to do? Burn it in the middle of the wine bar?"

"If it would help."

"Priya."

"I'm serious." She picked up her glass, took a sip, set it back down with deliberate calm. "I'm not telling you to feel guilty. Guilt doesn't change behaviour, it just makes people defensive. I'm telling you what I'm observing, because that's what I'm for. That's the job."

I looked at the card on the table. The clean serif font. The minimal logo.

"It's a real business opportunity," I said. "Eighteen-month engagement, Series C announcement, the kind of account that could change the trajectory of my career. If I decline it because of personal history, that's letting him take something from me twice."

Priya considered this.

"That's a good argument," she said. "Genuinely. It's well constructed."

"But?"

"But you built it in about four seconds, which tells me you've been holding it ready." Her eyes were steady, kind, unflinching. "You're not wrong that it's a real opportunity. You're also not telling me the whole truth about why you want to take it."

I did not answer.

The wine bar moved around us. Low conversation. The soft clink of glasses. Someone's laugh from a nearby table, easy and uncomplicated.

"Can I tell you what I think is actually happening?" Priya said.

"You're going to whether I say yes or no."

"True." A small sad smile. "I think some part of you wants to take the brief because it gives you a reason to be near him that isn't really a choice. If it's business, you don't have to own it. You can tell yourself it's professional, it's career, it's the responsible thing. And underneath all of that, you get to keep him in your orbit without ever having to say out loud that you wanted to."

The sentence landed exactly where it was aimed.

Something in my chest went very still.

"That's not" I started.

"Isn't it?"

I picked up the card. Turned it over in my fingers.

"I don't know," I said quietly. It cost me something to say it. "I genuinely don't know, Priya."

"That's honest. That's more than you've given me all night."

"What do I do with that?"

"You sit with it." She reached over and gently took the card from my hand, not forcefully, just firmly, the way you'd take something sharp from a child. She held it for a moment, looking at it. "And you decide, before Thursday, before BD calls him back, whether you're taking this brief because it's good business or because some part of you needed a door to stay open."

She held the card out.

I took it back.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do," she said. "I've never told you what to do. I'm just going to keep asking you the question until you actually answer it."

She picked up her glass.

"Now finish your wine. How's the dress search going?"

I laughed. Surprised, a little wet at the edges. And let the conversation shift, grateful the way I always was for Priya's instinct for exactly how long to hold a thing before setting it down.

I got home at half past ten.

Tobi had texted at nine to say he was thinking of me and hoped the wine was good.

I stood in my hallway reading that and felt something so clean and uncomplicated move through my chest that it almost hurt.

I went to the bedroom. Took the card out of my bag.

Stood looking at the open drawer for a long moment.

Then my phone buzzed in my hand.

A new message.

Not from Tobi.