She had come to observe from a safe distance and had instead gotten close enough to be hurt, which was the one thing I had spent my life arranging never to do.

But there was no bitterness in how she said it, only a kind of rueful wonder, the surprise of a guarded person who discovers that the guard has quietly failed and that the failing has given her the only thing she ever actually wanted.”

“And what did you find?” I asked, and my voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper, because I was suddenly afraid of the answer.

“When you looked at his world.