Go home.”

“I heard you the first time,” I said.

“I’m staying anyway.

You’ll want me here for this part.

Truly.

I did not raise my voice when I said it.

I had learned long ago that the quietest sentence in a loud exchange is often the one people remember, and I wanted this one remembered, because in ten minutes he was going to replay it and understand, far too late, that I had told him the truth to his face and he had been too certain of his own story to hear it.”

Something flickered behind his eyes — not fear, not yet, he was far too sure of himself for fear — but the first faint registering that the script was not reading back to him the way he had written it.