I tell his ghost to go fuck itself and find a spot where the wall meets my shoulder blades and I can see every entrance at once.
The posture isn't comfortable. My lower back aches from standing this way, always this way, back against something solid.But comfort isn't the point. Safety isn't even the point anymore. I know, logically, that I'm safe. He is an ocean away. Has been for eight years.
The point is that I can't stop.
I'm calculating how many more conversations I need to survive before I can leave without it looking like retreat when someone settles beside me. Not too close. Respectful distance. The first person tonight who hasn't crowded into my space like they own it.
"The Honorable Angelina Castellano, hiding at the bar." The voice is dry, amused. "I thought I was the only one."
I turn, already composing my face into pleasant neutrality, and find Judge Patricia Brown with a whiskey neat and an expression that suggests she's survived approximately the same number of tedious conversations I have.
Something in my chest loosens. Just a little.
"Judge Brown." I let my smile warm by a degree. A real degree, not a performance. "I prefer 'strategically repositioning.'"
"Mmm." She takes a sip of her whiskey. It smells like something I'd actually want to drink. Smoky and expensive, and the kind of thing you savor instead of use for courage. "I've been strategically repositioning for forty minutes. Chief Justice Rehnquist himself couldn't have dragged me back to that circle of pompous—" She catches herself, eyes crinkling. "Esteemed colleagues."
The laugh escapes before I can catch it.
Not the professional laugh. Not the one I trot out for networking events and judicial dinners. This one is rough-edged and surprised, startled out of me like a bird flushed from hiding.
I press my glass against my lips to cover the shock of it.
When was the last time I laughed at one of these things? When was the last time I laughed anywhere that wasn't home with Chesca?
"I got cornered by Whitmore," I offer, the unfamiliar taste of genuine amusement lingering in my mouth.
"My condolences." Patricia doesn't look at me directly. We're both watching the room rather than each other. It's easier this way, less pressure, two women who've learned that eye contact can be a demand. "Let me guess. His clerks are inadequate, the Ninth Circuit is a disaster, and his last opinion was a masterwork of jurisprudence the legal community has criminally underappreciated?"
Another laugh threatens. I manage, "He did mention the clerks."
"He always mentions the clerks." Brown shakes her head, but there's warmth beneath the exasperation. "You know what I got this week? A motion to dismiss because, and I am quoting, 'the plaintiff's claims are, like, totally without merit.'"
"You're joking."
"Hand to God. Twenty-three pages of argument, and that's the conclusion.Like, totally." She takes another sip. "Stanford Law, apparently. I weep for the profession."
I lean slightly toward her, the rigid posture I've maintained all night softening into something almost comfortable. We stand shoulder to shoulder, watching the crowd perform for each other, and for one quiet moment I'm not Judge Castellano calculating threats and mapping escapes.
I'm just tired. And so is she. And somehow that's enough.
This is what I miss. Someone whowants nothingfrom me except company.
"How's the Okonkwo RICO case?" she asks, quieter now. Professional respect rather than small talk.
"Complex. The evidentiary issues alone—" I shake my head. "Ask me again in six months."
"That bad?"
"That interesting."
Patricia huffs a laugh. "Interesting. The judicial equivalent of 'May you live in interesting times.'" She pauses, something shifting in her expression. "You're good, you know. Thorough. Fair. The profession needs more of that."
The compliment lands somewhere I wasn't expecting, somewhere soft and unguarded. I don't know what to do with it.
Say thank you. Accept it. Stop acting like kindness is a trap.
"Thank you," I say, and mean it more than I should.