I’m out of my seat before the word even leaves his lips, pulling my purse over my shoulder as stupid tears blur my vision. Of all the things he could say, all the words he could use to address me, he chose the one that means the most. He slid it past me when he called that day at Sloane’s, but today, when we’re face to face, and I can read every emotion compressed into the word, it hurts. “Don’t call me that. Don’t call me that ever again.”
