She made coffee and stood at her kitchen window. Her phone showed a message from Aryan, sent at 7:14 AM: I have been awake since five, which is unusual for me. I'm going to say it is your fault and see if you argue with the attribution.
She stared at it. He was funny when he was off-guard, in this very dry and specific way, and she had been trying to hold that fact at arm's length and was now failing to.
She typed back: I accept the attribution. What are you doing at five AM?
Thinking about what you said about the conversation I wasn't built for. I've been making a list of the things I should have said and didn't, going back further than you might expect.
She looked at this message for a long moment. How far back?
The first pitch meeting. You were explaining your churn model and you made a joke about your competitor's UI that was very good and I wanted to tell you it was very good and instead I wrote "compelling data" in my notes and moved on to the next slide.
She sat down at her kitchen table. You took notes on my joke.
I take notes on everything. It's a problem.
She laughed at her phone. The kitchen was full of early morning light. She sat with the warmth of it and the warmth of this message from this man who was trying, imperfectly and specifically, to do the thing she had asked him to do — to be less armoured about the things that mattered.
Then she made herself stop smiling and think clearly.
She called Priya.
"I need you to be honest with me," she said when Priya answered.
"I'm always honest with you. You just don't always like it."
"Am I making a mistake?"
Priya was quiet for a moment. The good kind of quiet — the kind where she was actually thinking rather than preparing a reassurance. "Do you think you are?"
"I think the situation has a complicated history that doesn't automatically become uncomplicated because I understand it now."
