“Some of these office spaces would be preserved.” She cleared her throat, her gaze darting between me and the open office door behind me. “We’d need the offices for the teachers and administrators. Then we'd convert the rest of the floor into workshop space. You know, for classes. Get-togethers. Whatever might make sense, whatever is needed. And then down there”—she pointed toward the far end of the floor, which looked like it held an empty conference room—“I want to build out a stage.”
“A stage?”
“Yeah. Like an actual black boxtheater.” Some of the excitement returned to her face, and whatever I’d unearthed by prying had been temporarily forgotten. She started toward that end of the building. “Can’t you just see it? I’m thinking we could make it modern, like a black box theater. There won’t be red carpeted steps or concessions stands, but something functional to do rehearsals. A space that can be dressed up to serve as the performance area. And we could put in a small box office there.” She pointed toward an area closer to the elevators. “So people who come for the performances won’t miss it.”
“The theater should have some sort of sign, too,” I said, nodding along with her vision. I loved it, but I was hesitant to let her know how deeply it touched me. I probably didn’t need to tell her though. We shared this wound, the deep cut of losing a sibling. “And you’ll have to name it.”
She laughed, still looking around like she could actually see the gold letters on the wall and the theater behind it. “Yeah. I will.”
“You should name it the Christopher B. Margulis Auditorium,” I suggested. Because that’s who this was for.
She looked over at me sharply, something pained sliding over her face. “I can’t.”
“But it’s yours,” I told her.
A bitter laugh slid out of her. “That’s not very on brand for the Margulis mission, now, is it? No, Axel, this has to stay completely anonymous. I can’t be attached to it.At all.”
“Fine. But wouldn’t you like his name to be on it?”
She sighed, exasperated. “Of course I would. But that’s not the world I live in. And you know it.”
We somehow always had a way of coming back to this point. At least we had when we were together. So I wasn’t sure why I was surprised that we’d made it back here all these years later.
“I think itcouldbe the world you lived in,” I said, because I couldn’t help myself. Apparently Cora was right—old habits died hard.
She dipped her chin, sending me a dark look. “I’ll be sure to tell my father’s legal team that it was all your idea, when I get sued for violating the NDA.”
Silence settled between us.
“You’ve never been able to understand this about my family,” she murmured. “Or maybe you just refuse to.”
Sure, it was hard for me to imagine a world where my own father would sue me for talking openly about the fact that a sibling had committed suicide. But Allan Margulis defied any definition offatherI’d ever dared to imagine. His version of paternal affection consisted of the relentless pursuit of more money, more prestige. From what I’d learned from Cora, there had never been tenderness there. Only cashflow.
“It’s not that I don’t understand,” I shot back. “I just never wanted you to be so stifled.”
She sent me a sad look, and for a moment, it looked like the entire weight of the world was on her shoulders. She’d lit up while talking about the auditorium plans, but now the joy had receded, and hollowness had replaced it. Gray pulled at her edges, the thing that I couldn’t name but that lurked just beneath the surface.
“If it weren’t for you,” she said softly, “I wouldn’t even know that non-stifled was an option.”
My fingers twitched with the urge to get closer to her. Bring her into my arms. Help dissolve whatever was hurting her. But I didn’t know how to do that without falling face first into the abyss. So I had to stay away.
“Well, it’s a noble project.” I crossed my arms again, reminding them to stay away from her, and jerked my chin toward the imaginary auditorium. “Maybe you’ll help save some other kids. That’s all we can hope for.”
Her brows drew together, and she nodded, emotion clouding her features. She was normally put-together, her expressions carefully schooled and practiced, but today all of that was gone. She sagged slightly, and the scarf dropped. She sighed, reaching down for it, but not before I caught an unobstructed glimpse of the state of her arm.
“Jesus, Cora.” I bent down, snatching the scarf up before she could. I gestured toward her arm. “What happened?”
Her face fell and she shook her head. “It’s really nothing. I just didn’t want to spook you.”
“Spook me?” I took her wrist in my hand, tipping her arm from side to side as I inspected the damage. “It looks like you got hit with a baseball bat.”
I glanced up at her face, finding tears shimmering there.
“Would you believe that I ran into a door?” She tried to make it a joke, but her laugh cracked halfway through, exposing the emotion beneath.
Whatever had happened, it was the iceberg in the water, cracking her ship. And hell if I wasn’t gonna pull her out of the water.
I tugged her into my arms, overcome by the need to hold her. She fell into my embrace easily, as if she’d been waiting for the chance, and she clung to me like her life depended on it. Cora buried her face in my chest, her fingers knotted in the back of my dress shirt. I squeezed my arms around her, resting my chin on the top of her head.