She grieved for Erin and the derailment of her career, but she couldn't blame Calder, or even Scott, for that. Erin had done that herself with her own fears. Calder's assumption that she was his for the asking still rankled, but she turned the same bitter anger on herself when she thought of how close he was to being right; how her body and her needs had betrayed her and come close to invalidating, if not destroying, the independence she had worked so hard to build ever since she was ten years old.
As the days turned to weeks and the new semester began, she taught herself once again to put the episode from her mind. She debated whether to tell Erin about what she'd learned, but she feared the knowledge would hurt her friend even more by reminding her of what she had lost. Then she opened her email one cold February morning to a surprise.
To:
[email protected] From: Scott Dunstan Subject: Erin's email address Hi Cassie, I hope you don't mind me bothering you like this out of the blue.
