I considered refusing.

Then she said Julian had been asking questions she didn’t know how to answer, and I agreed to a brief conversation at a coffee shop.

She arrived without the polished smile I remembered from the competition.

We ordered drinks and sat near the window.

“Brian says I pushed him to stay away,” she began.

“Did you?”

“Yes.” The answer surprised me.

“I told him he couldn’t spend his whole life looking backward.