Two weeks into what Jane was privately calling 'the normal period', she ran into Luke at the university café.
He was with the girl — Chloe, she'd learned, a perfectly nice-sounding person who had nothing to do with any of it. He looked up when Jane walked in and something crossed his face that was equal parts guilt and relief.
"Jane," he said.
"Luke," she said pleasantly. "Hi."
She ordered her coffee. She accepted, when he asked carefully if she had a minute, to sit down for five of them. She listened to what he said — the apology, the explanation, the look of a young man who had done something careless and was only now understanding the full weight of it.
"I heard you were—" He stopped. "The police said you went abroad. They closed the missing persons file. Are you okay?"
"Better than I was," she said honestly.
"Is there someone—" He looked at her with the careful look of someone who had noticed something different in her. "You seem different."
"I am different," she said. "Things happened. I'm okay. Luke—" She met his eyes. "I'm not angry. I want you to know that. You were careless with something that deserved more care. But I'm not angry."
He looked like this was harder to hear than anger would have been.
"Thank you," he said.
She picked up her coffee. "Take care of yourself," she said. She meant it.
She walked out and felt the door close behind her and felt, for the first time, that it was actually closed. Not a wound. Just — a closed door.
She texted Dimitri: Had coffee at uni. Luke situation: resolved. How's your day?
His reply came in ninety seconds: Good. Three meetings and one situation that required creativity. Dinner tonight?
She smiled at her phone.
Yes, she typed back. Nothing with fourteen courses.
His reply: Eight.
She pocketed her phone and went to her seminar.