Cellie's POV
The following week arrived and went with something approaching ordinary, which after the weeks before it felt like stepping out of a pressure chamber.
No bombs. No mangled bodies on the news. No Russian enforcers at my former building's perimeter. Just Demetrio going to meetings in the morning and coming back in the evening and the specific accumulation of small things that were building into the texture of a shared life without either of us naming it directly.
The chocolate chip meringata arrived at my school via delivery service the day after I mentioned it in passing. He had not appeared to be listening when I said it.
