Madison stared at him for a long, heavy moment, the silence between them vibrating like a plucked string. The air in the apartment felt thick and pressurized, as if the very oxygen were waiting for one of them to break the tension.
"You're not going to make this easier, are you?" she asked, her voice a low, weary exhale.
"What would 'easier' look like?" Mike countered.
He didn't move to soften the blow; he stood there, an unyielding monolith of honesty, forcing her to define the terms of her own surrender.
"Some version of you telling me this is simple," she said, her eyes searching his for a lie that wasn't there. "That it doesn't need to mean anything..."
"That it's just a distraction, a moment, something that doesn't require me to carry the weight of it."
"That it's just what it is and nothing more..."
"That is the script most men in your position would follow."
"They'd give me the easy exit."
