“Do you still wish to pretend?” He didn’t say the word—courting. My lungs twisted, like the wings of a caged, frantic bird. I knew what I wanted to say, but something in my chest, small, delicate, resisted the yes haunting the tip of my tongue. “Do you?” I felt resistance in his pause, he, too, lost to the world of things unsaid. “Of all the things I pretend at,” he said, his thumb drawing small, gentle circles along my waist, “courting you has proven the easiest.”
