I wanted to ask him. And I felt a little betrayed that my family had kept in touch with him for so long but never bothered to tell me. You could have called him, you know.

“Why’d you do it, Elisabeth?” Gordon asked over dessert, as we split a lemon bar. “Why’d you jump?”

I paused for a long time, then looked out the window at the walkway that wound between the buildings. Three girls in blue jeans and heavy winter jackets scurried down the steps that led to the fishpond, a secondary path across campus.

“I needed to escape,” I said, quietly.

Gordon looked at me for a moment, then nodded. He looked down at the last of the lemon bar, cutting a piece of it with his fork before pushing the saucer to me. We didn’t say anythin...

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