“Oh.”
“What happened?” He’s still standing in the hallway.
“I fell, hit my head.”
His eyes go straight to my arm. “Iris, if you’re covering for him... Did he…?”
“What? No. He would never.” I can see in his eyes that he still loves me. “Aaron, you should go.”
“Not until I know you’re safe.” He walks into my apartment, looking for who knows what.
“Aaron, I’m fine. There’s no onehere.”
“Iris, you know you can tell me... if anything happened. I can protect you.”
“I fell, Aaron. That’s it.”
He looks around; there are still boxes everywhere. “Iris, everything that happened, we can still fix it. Us.”
“There is no us, Aaron.” I move to open the door.
He walks out. “If I find out that asshole laid one finger on you, I swear to God Iris, I will kill him.”
“Aaron, please. I told you, Hoyt would never hurt me.” I want to make sure he understands, but he’s already in the elevator.
I take another couple of days off work—the students had submitted reports; I figured it was easier than asking someone to cover my absence. I’m busy reading the papers when Akira shows up.
“You weren’t kidding,” she says, opening the fridge.
“I told you, there’s plenty of food.”
She picks a lasagna tray and puts it in the oven.
“How’s your... theory going?” I ask, taking a seat.
“Let’s talk about anything but that.” She’d mentioned before that she’s having trouble with it.
“Hoyt invited me to a gala,” I tell her.
“Seriously?”
“And I’m pretty sure Aaron will be there too.”
“What? Why would he do that? You’re not going, right?”
“He said his lawyers advised him to be seen in public with me. It would help make their case... that Aaron could act... in bad faith.”
“Interesting. What did you say?”
“I said I’ll go. Anything to help him get his money back and be done with this drama.”
“Right. There’s been enough of that.”
“Will you help me get something to wear? All my formal dresses stayed at Aaron’s. I still have so much stuff over there.”
“Do you want to go to the store we went to last year?”
“I was hoping to wear something... different. I need a change. I almost chopped my hair off yesterday.”
