Anna looked at me for a long time without saying anything.
She did not ask another question or tell me everything would be fine. She simply sat on the edge of my bed watching me with those blue eyes that had always noticed things before I had decided to show them.
It made me uncomfortable.
Not because she was judging me. Because she was not. She was looking at me the way you looked at something you were afraid to touch in case the wrong pressure made it worse.
I looked away.
Outside, the evening breeze moved the curtains. Somewhere below the safe house the ocean was doing what it always did, indifferent and continuous. From downstairs came the low sound of voices, one of my grandfather's men laughing at something another had said in Japanese. The ordinary rhythm of a household that did not know or care that I was sitting in a room above it trying to hold myself in one piece.
Anna finally spoke.
"You've changed."
