She tapped the envelope. “Do you want me there?”
His answer was quiet. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you with me.” He leaned one hip against the counter. “But wanting something and deserving it aren’t always the same.”
Maya looked back at the invitation. She could almost hear the music already, smell the perfume and champagne and judgment. She could also feel the version of herself who had left the first one humiliated and shaking. She did not want to remain her forever.
“I’ll come,” she said.
Taylor’s expression changed—surprise first, then caution. “Only if you want to.”
“I don’t,” she said. “But maybe that isn’t the point.”
The night of the gala, she stood in front of the mirror in her room and barely recognized her own outline.
The dress was new, though not extravagantly so: deep green, structured but soft, with sleeves that skimmed her arms and a waist that fit differently now. Not because she had become transformed into somebody more acceptable, but because her body had changed in undeniable ways. Her face had sharpened. Her shoulders sat differently. She still had a fuller figure. She still looked like herself. But she looked like a self with more blood moving through her, more steadiness behind her eyes.
When Taylor knocked lightly and stepped in after her permission, he stopped in the doorway.
For once in his life, he seemed to have no immediate language.
Maya adjusted an earring. “If you say you clean up well, I’ll throw this shoe at you.”
His mouth curved, but his eyes stayed fixed on her. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“What were you going to say?”
