She had not corrupted me.

I had come to her already corrupt, already willing to trade a pregnant woman for a trust fund, and we had simply recognized each other across a room the way two of a kind do.

To hate her now for her shallowness was to hate a mirror for showing me my face.

The disease I had accused her of carrying was mine as fully as hers; I had just told myself a better story about it, dressed my own transactional coldness in the language of ambition and vision and hard necessary choices.

Delphine at least had the honesty to want what she wanted openly.