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“That’s not the same thing.”

Blaire folds her napkin once on her lap.

“I have work waiting for me, Ross. I have a life waiting for me.”

The sentence lands harder than it should. I study her face.

“Of course you do.”

Her expression doesn’t change.

I lower my voice.

“But I assumed we were still going to see each other.”

Blaire looks at me for several seconds before answering.

“I don’t think we should.”

For a moment, I’m not sure I heard her correctly.

“What?”

She glances down at the table.

“I don’t think this works.”

The room seems to narrow around us.

“What exactly doesn’t work?”

“You and me.”

I lean forward.

“Blaire, what happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“That’s clearly not true.”

She exhales slowly and looks back at me.

“Our lives are in different places,” she says.

“You’re here. I’m in California. You have New York and Geneva. I have my firm, my clients, my life there.”

“That’s logistics,” I say.

“It’s reality.”

“No,” I say. “It’s something we can manage.”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t want to manage a relationship through airports and calendars.”

“I can come to San Francisco,” I say, hearing the desperation in my voice.