Page 164 of Playing Dirty

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Because it wasn’t the answer.

It was the admission.

I sat upslightly more.

“This is normal for you?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not normal.”

He almost shrugged.

“It is for me.”

That answer again.

Always the same shape.

Never soft.

Mason

She got up too.

That was the part I didn’t expect.

Not dramatic.

Just standing from her bed like she’d decided sitting wasn’t enough anymore.

Now we were both upright again.

Same room.

Different distance.

Less predictable.

She walked toward the desk slowly.

Not toward me.

But not away either.

That middle space again.

Always that space.

“You don’t stop,” she said quietly.

“What.”

“Thinking. Moving. Whatever you want to call it.”

I leaned back slightly against the wall near the window.

“Neither do you.”

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