Lena

I was in the garden when Nate texted me.

Not a message. Just a link to the statement and a single line underneath: He went to bat for you.

I read the statement on my phone sitting among my mother's roses in the November cold with a blanket over my shoulders that Mrs. Billy had brought out without being asked.

I read it once.

Read it again.

There was a section, the part about my contribution to the gala, that had a quote from Nate that I was fairly certain I would need to sit with for a long time before I understood fully what it did to something...