“Then don’t.”

I had expected another suggestion.

The permission to mean what I said was enough.

I took a fresh sheet from the drawer.

At first, I wrote about the courthouse.

Then I crossed out the paragraph.

I wrote about the jobs, the studio, the meals I had skipped.

Those things were true, but I did not want to send Gregory a ledger of every hurt and wait for him to decide which entries he accepted.