“Ahhhhhh. Yeah, huh. I see.” Carmen scratches her head, throws me a little sarcastic smile of embarrassment and being dense, and then her face drops immediately to a blank expression.

“Does that mean…..that maybe Jasper….?” She falters on her own words, her voice husky, swallowing hard and then pulls her hands away from mine to go back to furious typing on the keyboard. Her whole posture stiff and defensive in the blink of an eye as she reverts to that inner cave inside her head where no one can hurt her. I can feel the change in her mood and the slight tremble to her lip as she tries to...