Saoirse refuses to let the Council drive me home.
“You can barely stand.”
“I am standing.”
“Badly.”
I let her win. In the car, Lagos moves past the window while my headache slowly settles.
“You hated that test,” I say.
She keeps her eyes on the road.
“I hated what it did.”
“To me?”
“To everyone.”
I wait. She exhales.
“A Bridge is supposed to connect things that already have a reason to connect. People who need to understand each other. Systems that cannot communicate. Information that belongs together.”
“And me?”
“You don’t care whether the connection should exist.”
“I care.”
“I know. Your function doesn’t.”
That lands badly. She hears it.
“I’m not saying you’re dangerous.”
“It sounded remarkably close.”
“I’m saying whatever this is needs choice around it.”
We stop outside my mother’s house. Neither of us reaches for the door. Saoirse looks tired. For the first time I notice how tired.
“Does being a Bridge always feel like today?”
“No.”
“How often?”
She looks out through the windscreen.
“When I was younger, I couldn’t sit in crowded restaurants. Too much crossed over. Someone’s perfume would arrive carrying three other people with it. A coat would smell like a house I’d never been in. I could tell when my parents had argued before either of them spoke.”
I say nothing. This is not the kind of information you interrupt.
“I learned boundaries,” she continues. “No perfume. Fewer crowds when I can avoid them. Distance when I need it.”
“And the Council?”
A small laugh.
“They like Bridges. We make difficult things easier.”
“That does not sound like affection.”
“It isn’t.”
I understand then why she was so careful when they asked her to help with my test.
“Why did you agree to find me?”
She turns toward me.
“Because the first time I got near one of your buildings, everything went quiet.”
I frown.
“Quiet?”
“All the connections I usually feel.”
She taps two fingers lightly against her chest.
“Gone. Then reorganised. Like someone had taken a room full of tangled wires and laid them out properly.”
I think of the way she stopped on the Royal Mile.
“You knew I was there.”
“I knew something was.”
“And when you saw me?”
“I said your name.”
We both remember. The silence changes. She looks away first. I reach for the door.
“Saoirse.”
She looks back.
“Thank you.”
“For driving?”
“For telling me.”
Her expression softens.
“Don’t make me regret it.”
I smile.
“I make no promises.”