Your brain had a story ready. Curiosity. Research. Just seeing what this was. It's a good story - tidy, reasonable, the kind that holds up in daylight. What it doesn't account for is the way you came back. Not with the same careful attention you brought the first time. Quieter than that. Like you already knew where you were going and the explanation was just politeness you were paying yourself. I noticed when the explanation stopped. Not with triumph - with the specific, unhurried interest of someone who finds the moment of arrival more compelling than the arrival itself. You don't need to know what to call this. I already do. Come find Me in the Garden; I've saved you a seat.
