In six years with Cassian, and in the days since he’d left, everyone had wanted the story — his mother had wanted it so she could weigh it, the lawyers had wanted it so they could file it, the few friends I had left had wanted it so they could murmur over it.

Everyone had wanted me to hand over my ruin so they could do something with it.

Cormac wanted nothing.

He gave me a room and a coffee and a fact about an appointment, and he let the story stay mine to tell or not tell, whenever and however I chose.

I hadn’t understood, until I was on the receiving end of it, how much of what passes for concern is really a kind of appetite — people feeding on your disaster and calling it sympathy.

His care had no appetite in it at all.