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“I don't understand why it is so challenging,” Miranda stated as she strode out of the Elias-Clarke building and looked at the curb as her silver town car pulled up to it, several moments late. “To get my car when I ask for it.”
She froze for a moment as Roy opened the back door for her. Across the street she saw someone she thought she’d never see again, even though it had only been a week since she’d last seen her. An unwelcome feeling bloomed in her chest as she looked at her, and she couldn’t tell if it was loathing or longing.
Andy.
Andrea Sachs.
Her former second assistant, and the biggest disappointment she’d experienced after decades in fashion. Andrea certainly wasn’t the first assistant to quit, over the years she’d lost count of how many had quit, there were too many wide-eyed dreamers who held delusions of grandeur when it came to fashion to even make a number. She wouldn’t even be the first one to be fired, though Andrea hadn’t come to that, hundreds of young girls had come to her in an attempt to prove themselves and almost all of them had been turned away with tears in their eyes. To make it through any assistant level under her and leave with a good recommendation would be a badge of honour. But Andrea had been the first to see her at her most vulnerable, the first to see her as anything more than the infamous Dragon Lady or Snow Queen of Runway, the first to see her as human.
From across the street, through the blur of cars, Miranda could make out Andrea’s small smile and overly friendly wave in greeting. She pursed her lips as her heart skipped a traitorous beat. Andrea Sachs was a nobody, a disappointment beyond the likes the fashion industry had ever seen. She’d thrown everything away; there was no reason for someone like Andrea to make her feel like the rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. There was no reason, no logical explanation, as for why she’d given a good reference, or as good as one could get from her, to the New York Mirror when they called in search of information. But she had, because Andrea Sachs had been an enigma. She was different than all the assistants that had come before her; they had all known fashion and idolised her, but Andrea had to be taught, and it wasn’t idolatry that she saw when they looked at each other, but immense admiration and some level of respect.
She shouldn’t have paused, but she did. Even if it was just for a moment, it was something. But time didn’t stop and neither could she, so she forced herself to look away, and held her sunglasses in place as she slid into the back seat of her car. Roy closed the door behind her before he climbed into the driver’s seat, but for once she paid him no mind as she made her way to the rightmost side of the vehicle. Andrea had started to walk away, and Miranda found her gaze staring after her. Despite everything, despite the fact that she threw away a job a million girls would’ve killed for, despite never even being remotely interested in fashion, Andrea looked good. At the very least she’d learned a thing or two on how to style clothes, and she couldn’t help but laugh with a small smile. As much as Andrea Sachs had left an imprint on her, it seems she had done the same for Andrea.
Miranda rolled her eyes as Roy looked back at her, the town car still parked at the curb, and she put on her sunglasses, "Go.”
Her smile fell as Roy pulled away from the curb and Andrea faded from view. Not many people had ever been privy to her private life, even her closest confidant, and yet she had let Andrea see her. When she had been alone, bereft with a flurry of emotions, none of which she had ever wanted to name, Andrea had been there. She had listened in that Plaza Athenée suite, and she would never forget it. In that moment she had been the complete opposite of composed.
Her hair had been mused, eons away from being styled into her signature pixie-cut with perfectly coiffed side-swept bangs. Her face bare of any makeup, her nose and eyes reddened from tears she held back, even in privacy she couldn’t find it within her to take a moment to weep. She’d been as far from glamourous as possible, wrapped in nothing more than a dull grey robe, as if she didn’t care about her appearance, her readers barely held in her hand. To anyone else it would’ve been a catastrophe, they would’ve assumed that she had lost her mind, lost her edge. To see Miranda Priestly, in infallible queen of fashion, undone would be to see her stricken of her power. It would be a scandal for the tabloids for certain, it would send the rumour mills into a frenzy. But Andrea hadn’t judged, hadn’t made a disaster out of it; she sat and listened.
“Another divorce, splashed across Page Six,” she had sighed as her gaze fell on her now useless wedding band on her ring finger, and Andrea had followed her eyes. “I can just imagine what they're gonna write about me.”
And Andrea had looked up from her notepad with those big, beautiful, brown eyes. Eyes that reminded her of a doe, so earnest and willing to listen. For whatever reason, the look Andrea had given her, had compelled her to continue, “The Dragon Lady, career obsessed. Snow Queen drives away another Mr. Priestly.”
She had let out a mirthless laugh, “Rupert Murdoch should cut me a check for all the papers I sell for him.”
Miranda’s attention had been caught by the absolutely heartbroken look Andrea wore on her face, and in an instant her priorities had shifted from self-pity to a form of comfort.
“Anyway, I don't- I don't really care what anybody writes about me. But my- my girls, I just- It's just so unfair to the girls. It's just...” Miranda had sighed as she shook her head, “Another disappointment... another letdown, another father...”
“Figure,” she’d corrected herself; her first husband, father of her girls, had been unfit for most things, let alone being there for her children, and if she was honest Stephen wasn’t much better, “Gone.”
She had tried to shift the impromptu conversation away from her life, the Greek Tragedy that it was, and back to work. To figure out the altered seating chart for the Runway Luncheon. But Andrea had other plans and she turned it back to her in a display of empathy so real, Miranda could’ve mistaken it for a dream. Life rarely showed her any level of kindness, so to get any empathy for anything felt like an illusion, a fantasy.
“I'm so sorry, Miranda,” Andrea had said and her voice broke, “If you want me to cancel your evening, I can.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” she’d deflected as she built the barrier back up, the shield between the world, Andrea, and her heart, “Why would we do that?”
But still, Andrea and her seemingly endless kindness had persisted, as if she had wanted to become more than an assistant but a friend and confidant, “Um, is- Is there anything else I can do?”
“Your job.” Miranda had answered, and that had effectively ended any and all niceties Andrea had graced her with. “That's all.”
She’d been more open with Andrea in that moment, than she had with anyone else in her life. Stephen certainly had never seen her in any form of vulnerable, not her first husband either, nor Nigel, the closest thing she had to a friend, if she could even call him that. Even Caroline and Cassidy hadn’t seen her unravel, not once. To all of them she was unflappable, someone who never wavered or felt threatened. She was not emotional or impulsive, she was refined, poised, and controlled. But yet she’d felt the need to spill her heart out like some sentimental fool to an assistant of all people, someone who hadn’t even been in her life for a year.
And like nearly everyone else, Andrea had left.
Miranda supposed it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, nothing in life was ever permanent, not husbands, jobs, or assistants. But she had come to like Andrea, it had been endearing in a way to know how far she would’ve gone to make sure she was okay, that the Dragon Lady remained poised on the top of Elias-Clarke, fiercely defending her position as Editor-in-Chief with her claws. It was a kind of loyalty, of devotion, she rarely saw, and if she were to get sentimental, she would’ve said that she was touched. But even that loyalty had its limits, she had seen it during her speech, the way Andrea’s eyes had darkened, her lips set into a deep frown as she looked away. She’d figured it would blow over easily, eventually with the ever-moving machine that was Runway it would all get buried under the next dozen issues.
But when Andrea had followed her to the car Irv had set up for her, the silence persisted, surprisingly loud despite the fact that not a word was being spoken. It was a drastic difference to the last time she’d been in an enclosed space with Andrea, who was often eager to talk. Now, she kept her gaze pointed out of the window, pointedly avoiding her. For a woman who had always revelled in silence, in the peace the quiet could give her, she felt compelled to break it. And she had turned Andrea’s attention away from the Parisian streets back to her as she explained what she’d done and why. Never before in her life had she ever felt compelled to explain herself, yet like many things, Andrea had changed that. What she had done wasn’t personal, it wasn’t a snub at Nigel or even Jaqueline and Irv, it had been self-preservation, nothing more. But Andrea just nodded solemnly, her gaze still downturned. For some reason the sight of her in that state, had sent a pang of anguish in her heart, even though it shouldn’t have. Andrea was nothing more than an assistant, she shouldn’t have cared, but she did.
“I never thought I would say this, Andrea... but I really-” She had cut herself off after Andrea looked at her and she graced her with a small smile, “I see a great deal of myself in you.”
Andrea reminded her of all the best parts of herself, the aspirations of greatness, the drive to prove herself. And she couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what she had looked like to Irv’s father all those years ago, someone capable of rising from nothing to the very top of it all. It was a revelation she had never observed much until now, she’d seen the change in appearance, that had been obvious from the moment Andrea had worn her very first pair of Jimmy Choos. Her sense of fashion had been nurtured and was in full bloom, her styling had certainly improved. But it was the confidence that had truly flourished and would ensure that Andrea succeeded in life. She saw things in ways that many others, in the rare case even herself, couldn’t and it was that skill that would make her a visionary, someday.
“You can see beyond what people want and what they need, and you can choose for yourself.” Miranda had shifted her gaze to the window as Andrea looked at her, it was easier to stay aloof.
I don't think I'm like that. I-” Andrea had stammered in a manner that was a sharp, jagged contrast from the eloquence she’d held before, “I couldn't do what you did to Nigel, Miranda. I couldn't do something like that.”
Miranda had hummed slightly in acknowledgement; Andrea was still young, she still had time to grapple with the morality of every choice she made, “You already did. To Emily.”
Emily reminded her of herself too, though most of her reflections were far from good. She had great potential, and Emily was a woman who could certainly go many places when she put her mind to it. But it was like looking through a cracked mirror. It was the eagerness, the desperation to please that went too far, as though she would sacrifice her soul, her life and very being to find the means to an end. The cutthroat edge was necessary to survive, but too far and you had nothing to fall back on, so support to come to your aid. Fatal flaws could be easy to find in people, it just took the right perspective, but Emily’s had been glaringly obvious from day one. She tried too hard to imitate what she looked up to, to lose herself completely to become a new person.
“That's not what l-” Andrea’s eyes had widened in horror, and she had fumbled over her words in a way Miranda hadn’t seen from her in a long time, “No, that was- that was different. I didn't have a choice.”
“Oh, no, you chose. You chose to get ahead,” her voice had been soft, softer than the facts of reality: no matter what industry one went into, there would always be choices to be made and sacrifices that would keep one up at night, “You want this life; those choices are necessary.”
“But what if this isn't what I want?” Andrea had murmured, “I mean, what if I don't wanna live the way you live?”
“Oh, don't be ridiculous, Andrea,” she had put her sunglasses on as she spoke, a veil of darkness that had covered anything genuine in her eyes. “Everybody wants this, everybody wants to be us.”
Of course, that statement hadn’t been exactly true, there were some people who would never be interested in fashion whatsoever, but the ideal behind it had the power to draw anyone in. Fashion, and by extension Runway and herself, wasn’t just about self-expression; it was about sending a message, making a statement. Christian Dior in post-war France had released his New Look that had sparked resistance and discussion for years to come, it had ignited excess vs restriction, historic conformity vs new norms. It had set the stage for modern fashion to flourish.
Before Dior it had been Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who had revolutionised women’s fashion. She had introduced a blend of comfort and functionality the fashions of the Victorian era had lacked, made the exotic commonplace. Her clothes had reflected the independence surge after the Great War, a symbol for the suffragists of the era. It had been evident that women were more than just pretty faces, side pieces to the powerful men of the age. She mixed the fashions of the age; certain fabrics were no longer singular to a particular sex. Where was once restriction grew expression.
Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking had challenged the conventional standards of feminism for the era. It had sparked debate on what it meant to be truly feminine and had caused more than a few scandals across the globe. Clothes that had always been traditionally for men had been opened to women, it had been the stepping stone for power suits. But as most things occurred in fashion, what the old rejected the youth revelled in.
Mary Quant’s popularization of the miniskirt had done the same, it had opened the fashion industry even more to the youth of the time, it had allowed them to take control of the narrative. And in essence, that was what fashion was all about. It wasn’t just the style of the clothes; it was the message they sent to the most obtuse viewer. Very few people wanted to be Miranda Priestly herself, they wanted what she embodied, the power she conveyed, the way she could sway the views of entire nations, it was a power that everyone wanted. She radiated an air of influence, of great power, and those she surrounded herself with benefitted from it, even if they didn’t want to. Andrea, like all the assistants before her, was no different to that.
So, she had donned a charming smile once the car stopped as she stepped out into the hoard of paparazzi, all vying for her attention, for a glance at her face, to try and find a glimpse of the real her. They wouldn’t of course, practically no one saw her outside of the persona she wore for Runway, Andrea had been one of the few. Miranda had made her way halfway up the stairs when she turned back, expecting Andrea to be right behind her. It would’ve been fruitless to speak to her with the paparazzi; however, she had still wanted to try. It wasn’t what she was wearing that drew the vultures in, but the influence she had, one good piece of press and that magazine could have funding for a year, maybe more. But Andrea was nowhere to be seen, and barely visible by the Place de la Concorde. Any attempt to page her failed, and after a long moment she had continued on, lest she hold up her own show. She’d have to attend the event as though she didn’t feel hollow, for a reason she couldn’t explain.
That had been the last time she’d seen Andrea, back turned away at the Place de la Concorde, leaving her like everyone else.
Since Andrea had left, she knew she’d never find another assistant like her. She was easy to replace; the role of second assistant was always swarmed with aspiring girls and women who wanted to make their way in fashion. Almost all of them were disappointments and in many ways, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But as a person, Andrea was irreplaceable, there was a drive, a fire in her that she’d never seen before. It was inspiring and terrifying all at once, and Miranda Priestly was a woman who was rarely terrified.
Time stopped for no one, not even her. The day continued on, then the month, then the year. But Andrea still didn’t slip from her mind, even after seven assistants had taken her place. It almost parasitic in nature, how she couldn’t forget her, just when she thought she had there would be a reminder. The divorce with Stephen went smoothly, Page Six had the scandal it always dreamed of. Even after everything changed, Andrea remained. Miranda couldn’t remember what had compelled her to gain a subscription to the New York Mirror, but she had and it soon became the highlight of her week.
With each edition she could see Andrea form her strength in writing, and every time she saw the young woman’s name in the written by section, an unfamiliar warmth bloomed within her. She took the newspapers home with her and spend at least a half hour, late in the evenings, ironing the pages until they were crisply folded, pressed to perfection. From there she’d place then all in their own special box, an archive, a memoir of sorts. In the background of everything she did Andrea was there, a thought on the back of her mind. Every time Paris Fashion week arrived, and she stayed in that hotel, she could envision Andrea walking in, fumbling with her schedule or the itinerary.
The twins, her bobseys, graduated Dalton, top of their class, sharing the role of valedictorian. They went on to college, Ivy Leagues, and she couldn’t be prouder. But with the veiled joy there was a heavier undertone, a hint of melancholy, Andrea had loved her girls, and in return Caroline and Cassidy had loved her too, and she couldn’t help but wonder what Andrea would’ve said to their accomplishments. She’d have been proud, of course, and Miranda still kept track of her, long after she’d left the New York Mirror, watching as she criss-crossed across the nation and the world, each editorial, each article better than the last.
Her girls eventually got married, both to very nice men who would ensure their happiness; and eventually she remarried too, third time’s the charm as the old saying went. Stuart was a good man, there was nothing grand about him, but he was fairly stable, at the bare minimum enough to not be a problem. She took on to wearing her readers permanently as her vision worsened, her sunglasses becoming a permanent fixture to her appearance. By the time Runway had ceased to be a physical publication she’d taken to printing out Andrea’s articles, cherishing them the same way she cherished her daughters and eventual grandchildren.
Irv tried to usurp her position several more times, but each time she’d held fast, a flaming emblem of stability even when everything else in the world had fallen into shambles. Andrea’s articles, her personality remained, even after hundreds, if not thousands of girls had gone through the second assistant position. The position of the first assistant was still as coveted, though it had never been the same as when Emily had held it. It had been a long decision to remove her, but a simple one, Emily needed to go, to move on to become more than just another fast-fashion imitation of greatness. But through it all, Andrea and the effect she had on her remained.
She’d never expected to see her again, even though she’d kept track of her progress over the past twenty years. Yet here she was, standing in the doorway to her office, the eve after the scandal that could and most likely would destroy what she had built over decades. It was hard to look at her and not see the young woman she once had been, barely a flower in bloom, and yet Andrea stood there, somehow excited at the prospect of seeing her again, as if she hadn’t been the one to leave it all behind in the first place.
“Hello, Miranda,” Andrea breathed, her voice holding an awestruck quality before her attention got sidetracked by the other person in the room. “Nigel.”
“Look what TJ Maxx dragged in,” Nigel jested before he broke out into a smile. “Hello, Six.”
Andrea launched herself into a tirade, not unlike an overeager puppy vying for attention from its owner. Some things never changed, even over twenty years. She still spoke with her hands and had that uneasy gleam in her eyes of someone who felt well out of their depth but did everything they could to hide it, still had that desperation to please. But this time it held a confidence that knew she could.
“Sorry. Who is this?” Miranda interrupted Andrea’s listless rambling, her tone cold “Do you know her? Do I know her?”
“You might remember Andy. She was one of the Emilys,” Nigel supplied and she sent him a glare out of the corner of her eye.
She raised an eyebrow, more than in tune to play dumb despite the fact that she was anything but, she’d be lucky if she forgot either of them before she was dead, “One of the what?”
“The Emily from...” Nigel grimaced, “It's...”
“I'm Andy Sachs” Andrea introduced as she snapped her fingers as if trying to recall a long-forgotten memory, “Uh-- Uh, the smart fat girl. I was one of your assistants eons ago.”
It was easier to be cruel, easier to pretend she didn’t care, that she hadn’t spent the last twenty years of her life tracing the steps of the very person who had abandoned her and consumed her thoughts. She had survived well over thirty years of her life without Andrea, and then another twenty years after a miniscule blip. And yet she had been a shadow in her life for an eternity. So, other than a few jabs, she’d ignored her on the way to Dior to face her swan song. From the moment the fast-fashion crisis had imploded she had dreaded it, dreaded seeing yet another person who had left, by her own hand or otherwise. From the very first glance at Emily Charlton, years later, it was plain to see that she hadn’t grown in the ways necessary to succeed. But her attention hadn’t been on Miranda.
“Am I having a hallucination?” Emily questioned, her voice positively dripping with shock, her eyes wide as saucers.
“Emily, hi,” Andrea practically chirped and Miranda suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, she was twenty years older and still a child in so many ways.
Emily’s eyes widened as she took Andrea in, and she felt an ugly feeling rise in her chest, “Oh, wow.”
“You also know her?” she barely managed to keep the thinly veiled feeling out of her voice, possession over something she didn’t have, the competition of want.
“Well, we were at Runway at the same time, Miranda,” Emily answered as though it was the plainest fact in the world.
“Really?” Miranda drawled as she feigned a look of surprise, “Where was I?”
The meeting with Dior and Emily went as well as she had expected it to and she had rolled along with it, in this modern era of fashion she didn’t have as much power as she once held. She made it her mission to avoid Emily as much as she could after she had sent her to Dior and after the meeting she intended to continue that mission, being around her with Andrea in the mix brought back too many unpleasantries. So, she added on a new mission, avoid Andrea as much as humanly possible. It was too much of a reminder of what was before, what had occurred in Paris, and even when she was forced to be in her presence, she was curt.
It was too hard to look at her and not see the kind-hearted, naïve young girl she had been and not the infuriatingly capable woman she was now, somehow able to make the impossible, possible. She truly had become something grand, a visionary with how she utilised her craft, how the words seemed to flow from her fingertips to the screen. Though as much as she loathed it all, she revelled in the feeling of having Andrea close again, the pain of twenty years soothed ever so slightly. Her heart sped when they were near, every hair on her body on edge until they parted, a warmth that flooded her usually chilled veins.
Just as cruelty was easier than honestly, being aloof was easier than looking inside oneself. She’d known for a long time her truth, that men would never satisfy her in the way she desired them to. But she had never been one to act upon it. It was something that went unspoken, though it wasn’t uncommon for people in fashion to like those of the same sex, she’d known more than a few gay men and women in her years at the top of the world. They could be free to be themselves when they were just middle to low level employees, but when you were the face of the industry it was more complicated. Any move you made could spring scandal not just on your life, but on what you worked for, so it was better to conform and fit the narrative that the world expected. It was easier to pretend to be happy, lest she give Page Six yet another scandal. She’d already given enough of her life to the tabloids; she didn’t need to give them another minute.
Besides, she was certain that even if she could come to terms with everything that they shared or didn’t share, they wouldn’t work. They were at two completely different stages in their lives, while she was in the golden years of her life when she should’ve been thinking of retirement and travel, Andrea was a burgeoning adult, flourishing as a participant in society. They were from two completely different worlds, the struggle of the post-war world to the naïveté and youth of someone who hadn’t seen the darkest sides of life. She wasn’t going to, and couldn’t, steal the best years of Andrea’s life away from her.
All of that was to say nothing to the fact that she was a married woman. She had an obligation to Stuart, who in all honesty was more of a good, dear friend, than a lover or husband. In all of her previous marriages, she had only initiated one divorce. She’d caught her first husband in her bed with another woman, and that was the only time she initiated divorce. Stephen had quit the marriage long before he’d faxed the summons, the moment he saw she was as dedicated to her work as she was, he’d checked out of the proverbial hotel. She’d never been unfaithful, Stephen had been fully aware of how important her work was, and she didn’t plan to start now. She’d been put through enough heartache for a lifetime, seen the damage divorce had put on her girls, her life, her friends, and her work. So, while her heart held its inexplicable longing for the one woman she couldn’t have, she held it in check.
She may be the Snow Queen, the impossible to please Dragon Lady, but even she wasn’t entirely heartless. She wouldn’t put herself and Stuart through a divorce so she wouldn’t be unfaithful, she would clamp down and control herself as she always did.
She wasn’t a woman who often acted on a whim, nearly every move she’d made in her life was precisely calculated. Her career hadn’t been born by accident, but plotted with careful, deliberate steps. Every step she’d taken, every promotion she’d earned, every bridge she’d built and burned all had an exact reason. But with Andrea there rarely was one. There was no reason when it came to Andrea, she just was. Andrea floated through chaos and crisis as if she was on her own plane of existence, and she somehow managed to find a solution every time. There was no taming her spirit, her drive, the fire that had drawn Miranda into her in the first place.
Miranda supposed that inviting Andrea to her estate in the Hamptons hadn’t been a mistake. Logistically, it might have been a mistake, but to her heart it wasn’t. It was the perfect opportunity to be by Andrea’s side. Not a single one of her guests would question her closeness, not when it could easily be written off as helping a rising journalist network. Still, her heart skipped beats every time Andrea looked her way or laughed with her at a joke. She kept her wine glass close, kept it full, a rosy-cheeked haze that acted as a shield. It wasn’t often that she got drunk, let alone tipsy, but she could feel her skin grow warm every time Andrea looked her way.
At dinner she could feel Andrea’s gaze burn into her head, and she drank more wine. Each sip made the tension melt from her shoulders, just enough to loosen her spirits without loosening her tongue. The moment she saw Andrea get up from the table; she’d made note of it and quickly finished her conversation with Irv. In an instant she was on her feet and headed into her home, wine glass still in her hand as she went to find Andrea. Miranda found her in the kitchen, and she refilled her wine glass as she spoke with her about the conversation with Irv. Periodically, she drank from her glass, and she smiled when Andrea’s eyes lit up at the idea of potentially more funds for the features department. She couldn’t help but laugh at herself; here she was, acting like a flustered, infatuated schoolgirl; when in all actuality she was a woman well into the golden years of her life.
“I always knew that you would end up doing something great.” Miranda mused as she took Andrea in and set her glass down on the counter.
She had certainly grown quite a bit over the past twenty years, filled out the features that had made her beautiful. Nigel had done a fabulous job in styling her outfit, thought that hadn’t come as a shock. He always had immaculate taste; the same skill she’d observed when he was the Deputy Creative Director. He’d exquisitely enhanced Andrea’s beauty, as he had with every other person he’d graced with his talents, but Andrea was one of the few he’d made truly ethereal.
It was obvious that her confidence, like her sense of fashion, had expanded tenfold too. Andrea had grown from the shy, anxious, people-pleasing, girl to a confident, opinionated, headstrong woman. But there were so many ways she was still young, the naïveté that still trusted those around her, that never expected to be stabbed in the back. Journalism and fashion were two different beasts of the same breed. It was honestly astounding that she’d managed to maintain her faith in those around her, and privately, Miranda hoped she never lost it.
Andrea rolled her eyes, “You forgot I existed.”
“Right,” Miranda feigned a smile as she put her sunglasses on, “But, before that, I knew.”
She sidestepped her way past Andrea, her extra glass of Rosé abandoned on the marble countertop. Her heart quickened traitorously as she walked away without a second glance. Miranda Priestly rarely, if ever, looked back. Once someone was out of her life, they were gone from her memory unless absolutely necessary. It was a rule she’d made when she was young, a mechanism to protect herself; but Andrea had always been the exception to the rule. She’d been the only person she allowed herself to dwell on, even long after she’d left. Perhaps, though it all, she could make it work, make them work, even if she had no reason to. All her life she’d had a reason for everything, something to categorize and explain every action taken. But there was never a reason for Andrea, and for once she didn’t try to find an explanation or reason for it all, she didn’t need one. Andy simply was.