The Last Morning

"So I wouldn't what?" he said.

"Send me back," she said. Simply. The truth of it, clear and flat, the kind she told only when she was entirely certain she was safe to tell it.

He held her and said nothing for a moment.

"I would not have sent you back," he said. "There is no version of any event that ends with me sending you back."

"I know that now," she said.

"You knew it before you knew it," he s