"Sometimes I feel like I need it to have happened to me to because otherwise no one will see me."

He felt his eyes widen in shock, not at her words but at the tears that welled up in the corners of her eyes before two tiny drops ran down the sides of her nose. He'd never seen her openly cry in front of him and his heart stuck in his throat. He couldn't breathe around it and his damn arm was still tingling so he couldn't move it to comfort her.

"I feel so hurt and invisible and nothing even happened." She choked and caught her breath. "I'm so sorry."

His brain simply stretched out like a bleak, empty desert road with not a single word bouncing around that he could give to her. He wanted to make things right.

"I will tell you on one condition," he said after he searched and searched and came up with nothing else to say.

"What's that?" She sniffed and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her hoodie.

Martin took her hand and pulled her off the bed. "We discuss it over tea, and we wear silly high heel shoes."

"You're going to make my best shoes smell again," Monica complained but she was smiling when she followed him to her room where they raided the closet for a pair of black stilettos for her, a gift from her older sister which showed how out of touch her sibling with Monica's personality, and a thick pair of purple pumps for Martin. They clomped into the kitchen together and put the kettle on the stove.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Monica laughed. Martin wiggled his toes against the tight shoes and winced.

"How anyone wears these I have no idea. What's this pair from again?"

"It was a present from that lady over in Pennsylvania who always buys my cocoa butter soap