ARIA'S POV
I sat in my car for eleven minutes before I started the engine.
I knew it had been eleven minutes because I kept watching the clock on the dashboard without realizing it. The numbers changed slowly, as if time itself didn’t care that I wasn’t ready to leave but wasn’t ready to stay either.
The coffee shop was behind me. Dominic was still in it. Somewhere in there he was sitting at a table with a ring in front of him and his cold coffee.
I drove home the long way.
Not deliberately at first. I just took wrong turns, or turns that weren't wrong exactly but were longer, and I let the car carry me through streets I knew without needing to think about them.
When I got inside I stood in the middle of my living room still in my coat.
Looked at everything.
My paintings on the w
