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Blaire watches me closely.

“You wanted to disappear into the ocean?”

A faint smile pulls at my mouth.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

She takes another sip of her martini.

“You’ve spent your entire life in rooms where everyone knows exactly who you are. Maybe that was part of the appeal.”

I consider that.

“Maybe,” I say.

Blaire rests her forearm on the table.

“Did you ever want to do it badly enough to fight for it?”

The question lands harder than I expect.

“No,” I answer.

“Why not?”

“Because by the time I was old enough to understand what choosing something else would mean, I’d already accepted what my life was going to be.”

She doesn’t respond immediately.

I look at her and add, “That’s not regret.”

“I know,” she says quietly.

“It’s just the truth.”

“I know that too.”

There’s something in the way she looks at me then that makes the conversation feel more intimate than anything we’ve said all evening.

Blaire reaches across the table and touches two fingers to the back of my hand.

“You do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

“Accept things before you decide whether you actually want them.”

I turn my hand beneath hers and close my fingers lightly around her wrist.

“That sounds like criticism.”

“It’s observation,” she says.

“Dangerous distinction.”