She clasped the wrists of her friend. They stood tense, against each other: so. In a taut silence.
“We are all ruined,” came Clara’s voice. “But you still love.”
Clara’s head tossed in anger. “No sentiment!”
“There are no ruins I tell you,” Fanny met her.
Fanny lay quiet in bed. She was relaxed at last. The vibrance of these many hours had run out into a Space beyond her, where the sharp thrusts through her nerves lay lost in a pool of glow.
She lay in this glow in bed: Clara beside her, responsive to her friend’s new peace but unaware of its synthesis of warring parts meeting beyond her.
“Should I read?” she asked.
“Tell me about your friends.”