I awoke the next morning as the sun crested the horizon in a clear sky, lighting my room with its brilliance. I got out of bed, threw open the curtains, and beheld my borrowed view, the lush green of the lawn across the road, the long shadows cast by the trees, intensified beneath a vault of blue. With the case now solved bar the proof – which I did not feel beholden to find – I felt much lighter than I had for the previous two weeks and prepared for my morning run with something like joy in my veins. It was joy coloured with promise. I wondered what Ciaran was up to. If he, too, was already up and getting ready for his day. Was he thinking of me as I was thinking of him?
Even the prospect of a new love in my life gave me immense energy, and I was out the front door in my running gear in
