"Hi."
Cold.
Clare knew.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"Dean."
"He kept looking at the door."
Her stomach dropped.
"I tried."
"I know."
"You keep saying that like it doesn't matter."
"It matters."
"Then talk to me."
Dean exhaled.
"I'm not angry you have work."
"Sounds like it."
"I'm angry we told him you'd come."
Clare closed her eyes.
Fair.
"I shouldn't have promised."
"No."
"What do I do?"
"Nothing tonight."
"That isn't an answer."
"He'll be fine."
"What about you?"
Dean laughed once.
"There it is."
"What?"
"You're making this about me."
"Because you sound hurt."
"I am."
"Why?"
Silence.
Then Dean said:
"Because I've done this."
Clare stopped.
"What?"
"Anna worked nights."
"Hospital."
"Evan would wait."
"I'd explain."
"I can handle that."
"But after she died, every broken promise started feeling bigger."
Clare's anger disappeared.
"Dean."
"I know it's irrational."
"It isn't."
"It is."
He sighed.
"I don't want Evan depending on someone who isn't sure she's staying."
The words hurt.
Clare sat down.
"Do you think I'm leaving?"
"I think you've done it before."
There it was.
Old wound entering new relationship.
Clare whispered:
"That's not fair."
"I know."
"No, Dean."
"You don't get to tell me one day at a time and then punish me because twenty-five-year-old me left nine years ago."
He was silent.
She continued.
"I missed a school event."
"I didn't abandon your son."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Silence.
Dean finally said:
"I'm sorry."
Clare breathed.
"I am too."
"For the event."
"For promising."
"I should have said I'd try."
Dean nodded though she could not see.
Then Clare said:
"And you need to stop making me audition against a dead woman."
He went completely silent.
Clare regretted the wording instantly.
"Dean, I didn't mean..."
"No."
"You did."
"I'm sorry."
He said nothing.
Clare closed her eyes.
"Anna deserves her place."
"She does."
"I'm not trying to take it."
"I know."
"But sometimes I feel like any mistake I make proves I'm not her."
Dean's voice softened.
"I don't do that."
"You do."
Silence.
Clare continued.
"Maybe not consciously."
"But she can't disappoint you now."
"I can."
That sentence landed.
Dean whispered:
"That's not fair either."
"I know."
Both truths.
Both unfair.
Both real.
They ended the call badly.
Not breakup.
Worse.
Unresolved.
Dean barely slept.
At two morning, he sat in kitchen drinking coffee he did not need.
Megan's words returned.
Pain proves loyalty.
He had been doing it again.
Anna had become perfect because memory stopped updating.
Clare was alive.
Living people missed events.
Got defensive.