I walked in, the ill-fitting slacks crinkling with each step. “There she is,” my father said, cutting into my thoughts, and I was so relieved to be his prize again I almost giggled, the kind of laugh that made people uncomfortable. Instead I managed to only smile at my father; he winked at me, and the intimacy of this gesture was nearly too much to stand. My mother ushered me in, her hand on my back once more, and I made the rounds of hugs, trying my best to ignore Langham. Would my parents be acting this way if they knew? It was entirely possible; this would not be the moment they’d choose to punish me. Appearances were paramount. Whatever it was would come later. Hi, so good to see you. I breathed in their colleague Patrice’s familiar floral perfume and her husband’s musky scent, which reminded me pleasantly of a horse stable. They were good together, had always been, not in the powerful, star-crossed, showy way of my parents, but in a lower key. Their son, Leroy, who was a few years younger than me, hadn’t come for years now: he’d recently started college, but even in high school, he’d had other plans, and whenever his parents had rotated in among the guests, they’d let him skip. The one time I’d mentioned that I wanted to go to a friend’s place instead, that I wouldn’t be able to make it, my mother had breathed an oh with such wounded shock that I’d retracted immediately. She was too fragile; it would break her. Or she was too proud, unable to countenance that I’d want anything other than the life they’d built, even for a moment. I didn’t know. It didn’t matter; I’d never tried again—not until the four-year respite of college. But now I was back, and back meant here, in their apartment. Why did Leroy get to be free?

My aunt and uncle had left, it seemed. The only remaining guest was a woman a bit older than me, and my mother introduced her as their young new colleague Olivia. Her black hair was cut into a blunt bob, one side tucked behind her ear, the other covering a bit of her face in a becoming way. She was pretty. Langham was to my left, and I made a show of introducing myself to Olivia, smiling beautifully and magnanimously. Langham who? But my mother touched my arm and gestured to the left.

“You’re forgetting Dr. Langham,” she said, steering me toward him.

So they didn’t know.

My body went heavy, my throat tight; it took everything I had not to cry. But why? Wasn’t this a good thing? They hadn’t brought me here to punish me! They just wanted me here, their daughter! Tears pricked at the backs of my eyelids.

They didn’t know.

But Langham did. Langham, my coconspirator. My secret accomplice. We had done something wrong, and we had gotten away with it. “I’m sorry,” I said to him. “It’s nice to see you again.” I tried to look up at him from under my eyelashes in a way he would find attractive—this is our secret—I needed the laser beam that had connected us last week—they don’t know—but he returned my gaze with a neutral expression, then pursed his lips, not only failing to be aroused by me, but actively putting me off. His lips said, This is not going to happen. His lips said, I don’t want you.