Sabine has always looked younger than her actual age. People used to mistake her sister, who was five years younger than her, as the older sibling, or, less often, her twin.

Apart from her appearance – unblemished skin, wide forehead, big and bright eyes – she has this very girlish voice, and the kind of clothes she wears ... I don't believe I've ever seen her wear pants. Or a suit. And she is assertive like a child, too. She won't say anything for a while, then she gets upset out of nowhere, and starts making demands.

And there's no grace in her demands. When she doesn't like something, she goes – I don't like this. Or I don't understand this. Or go away. It doesn't matter who's in front of her. She'll say it just like that.

She looks just like she did back in high school when she sleeps.

She has fallen asleep on the armchair, cheek smushed into the palm of her hand, feet pulled up.

I reach out and push a lock of her dark hair away from her face.

"Should we wake her?" I ask Maryann.

"Let her be. She's tired." Maryann says.

She's tired. Yeah, she does look it. The circles under her eyes are pretty dark.

What have you been up to, Sabine? Will you tell me tomorrow? Will you talk to me at all?

"I'll get going now, then." I say.

"Okay." Maryann shrugs. She stands up. "Come on, where's your coat?"

"It's in the kitchen." I say. Maryann goes to get it. I glance at Sabine's sleeping form. Maryann returns. We walk to the door.

"Hey, man, thanks for dinner." Maryann says.

"Anytime." I smile.

Maryann nods. "Goodnight, Hughes."

I return the goodnight. I walk down Maryann's steps. I unlock my car and get into it. I close my eyes and just breathe. I'm somehow slightly nervous. I don't know. I start the car. I go home. I think of Sabine almost the entire time. How she looked when she was sleeping. We used to have sleepovers back in the day. At night, we would sleep facing each other, after having talked late into midnight, but the next morning, we would wake up facing the other side, always. We used to laugh about it.