g at 3:30 PM, and

s. Abigail had no umbrella. She zipped he

ass, already staring at his phone. She jogged through the puddles, snea

head sn

oking past her, across the busy str

il tu

hood and pulled it back, and for one brief, exposed second, Abigail saw her face - or enough of it. Long blonde ha

bbr

and cracked, a sound she had not heard from

into th

ten feet away, tires shrieking on the wet asphalt, the bumper stopping less than a fo

For a second she was perfectly still - and then she spun and disappeared into a narrow alley b

d stood at the mouth of the alley, calling her

n the rain and

ong. It came from something much harder to hate: grief. He had lost someone he loved,

ugh. His hair dripped into his eyes. He stopped in front of Abigail

s your

quiet. That was w

ack," he said, "she w

t choose any of this any more than you did. But she looked at the red rims of his eyes, the way his hands

e car door o

herself into the corner. The Escalade tor

te trench coat, vanishing into an alley in the rain. She thought about the way D

nd a girl who wasn't here, and Abigail had been dropped into the center of that orbit like a stone in

bigail's head knocked again

th shut. She kep

re a very specific kind of endurance - not just toughness, but patience. Th

t much patience. But she wa