Mona watched the interaction of the two men from the office’s closed circuit monitor, mostly concerned to see if Clark would change his behavior at all and if the man in the cowboy hat would say anything about her. Would he ask if she was there, opening up a Pandora’s box she would otherwise remained closed? Why was he here? There was no way he could have known she was living here, she hadn’t told anyone, just picked up and left Santa Fe at 3 in the morning. 10 years. That’s how long it’d been since their brief affair. He had been doing some work with her mother and father, researching some government project she could not have cared less about. She hated mathematical thinking but somehow he seemed different. He could think and feel the other ways, he wasn’t tied down to facts only coming from one source. 

.Mona felt a wave of anxiety begin to wash over her. The feeling was so powerful and strong she wasn’t sure she would be able to contain it. Her heart was pounding n her cheat and all the nerves in her stomach were making her feel nauseous. A ringing began in her ears, loud and insistent, surging in volume until it was all she could hear. Her mind was slowing everything down to a moment in time, an image that seemed still but was somehow` moving as well and she became lost inside of it.