"It wasn't your fault," I said.
"I know. I'm not apologizing for me. I'm apologizing because someone should have."
The garden stayed quiet. The jasmine breathed. The fountain in the higher terrace ran steady. Something in the conversation had changed and I didn't know how to track it.
"Liora."
"Yeah."
"I thought you were going to be angry."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not who you thought I was. Because the body you've been kissing belongs to someone else. Because everything you knew about me was a performance based on a video game I played in a country that doesn't exist on this planet."
She thought about it. Slow.
