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She rejected him without thinking. That was the sixth. Still, afterwords, there was guilt, regret, remorse.
She realized several seeds of doubt had been planted each day, over ten years ago, in Baltimore and Memphis.
She returned to the normal world, the right world, not unchanged.
The first seed was their first meeting. She had stood strong against his harsh comments, plastering a smile into her face for him and Barney, at least until she could collapse at her car.
The second was his towel wrapped around her neck.
A touch, then, full of meaning. Three.
Four and five went hand-in-hand, a letter received years before and the one received much more recently. Two promises. One said he wouldn’t, the other said he would.
She thought for a minute. Maybe he wasn’t as calculating as they had said. Intelligent, yes, but near overemotional. Not rash, like her.
Starling did not realize that, as a tear slid down her cheek, somewhere, hundreds of miles away, one slid down his, too.