[The corners of her lips twitched upward, and if she made a sound just then, it would have sounded like a half-laugh, half scoff. Not at Pepper, but at herself.]

He feels bad enough about leaving in the first place. I'm sure the feeling will go away eventually. I just have to...get over it. Or something.

[It's not that she was deliberately keeping it from him. In fact, she was pretty sure, on some level, he already knew. Given their reunion. But her frame of mind was that if she didn't dwell on it much--besides confiding in Pepper this one time, just to get it out there--then maybe it would go away. And they could get back to the fun times.]