Vivian offered to apologize if I agreed to drop the matter.

She wanted him to persuade me before the next step made it harder to settle privately.

“She wants an apology to replace the evidence,” he said.

“What were you going to answer?”

He showed me the sentence he had begun.

It asked whether she could put everything behind her and speak to me directly.

He read it, then deleted it.

“I won’t negotiate away the evidence,” he wrote instead.