The best thing I could do, when he finally stood in front of me again, was to be my full size, and to let him see it, and to feel nothing much about whether he approved.

Chapter 12 — I Saw Him Coming

I saw him coming, and I did not panic, and I want to mark that, because there was a version of me — the version he had known — who would have panicked.

That woman would have reached for her purse and started calculating exits.

That woman’s heart would have climbed into her throat at the sight of Mike Bennett crossing a room toward her with something to say.

But that woman had died somewhere in a small apartment five years ago, over three days, staring at a pregnancy test, and the woman who had grown up in her place did not fear this man anymore.