He did not turn it into a performance. He met the director. He sat in on a budget review. He asked irritatingly intelligent questions about administrative leakage, reimbursement structures, and why the city grant process seemed designed to punish honesty. He walked through classrooms that smelled like crayons, old radiator heat, and summer sweat. He spoke to a teenage volunteer who told him bluntly that most rich people only liked poor children when cameras were present.
“What about you?” Taylor asked.
The girl folded her arms. “I’m deciding.”
When they left, he was quiet all the way to the car.
That night on the terrace, city heat rising around them, he said, “I have lived in this city for fifteen years and there are blocks of it I’ve apparently never entered in any meaningful way.”
Maya sipped cold mint tea. “That’s true of a lot of people.”
“I thought being aware of need was the same as understanding it.”
“It usually is for people with money.”
He nodded, accepting the rebuke. “I want to set up something long-term for the center.”
Maya looked at him over the rim of her glass. “Something ethical?”
“Yes.”
“Not named after you?”
“God, no.”
She smiled despite herself. “Then maybe.”
By August, the weight loss was visible enough that strangers commented. Maya hated that almost as much as the opposite.
At a pharmacy checkout, the clerk smiled brightly and said, “You look amazing—whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”
Maya smiled back automatically, then sat in the car afterward with both hands clenched around the receipt.
Taylor noticed. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
He waited.
She said, “I hate that people are kinder when I’m smaller.”
He rested his forearm on the steering wheel. “Do you want comfort or honesty?”
“That question alone makes me want to push you into traffic.”
“Honesty, then.” He turned toward her. “Some people are shallow. Some people think praise is harmless because they’ve never been punished by it. Some people want a success story because it lets them believe life is controllable. None of that changes the fact that you were worth exactly the same before they noticed.”
Maya stared out the windshield. “You’re getting better at this.”
“I’m terrified of getting worse at it.”
It was such an honest answer that she turned and looked at him. He held her gaze. The air between them shifted in a way that had become increasingly familiar and increasingly difficult to survive.
