Yara changed the night Soren came back from the coffee cart, and she changed in the direction of ready.
He noticed it because he was looking now.
She didn't cling. That was the first thing off.
A year of Yara was a year of weight against his side, a face in his neck, the specific gravity of a creature who wanted to be as close as physics allowed. That Yara wanted proximity.
This one wanted position.
She stood at the window when he came in. Not draped on the bed. Standing, red eyes on the east yard, hands folded. Not a woman waiting for him. A general reading a field.
"You're up," Soren said.
"I'm up."
"You're never up first."
"I'm early," Yara said, which was the sentence from the evaluation, the one she'd been repeating for weeks, and now he heard the second half she never said. Early for what.
◆◆◆◆
She stopped sleeping under the bed.
