8
I woke gasping. Aren was gone. I’d been standing in the shadows of the bedroom, willing his presence to surge into me but there was nothing.
I wrapped the robe tight and stepped to the mirror. There was no fog or handprints there.
It felt like I’d been exorcised.
I set the alarm on my phone and left the apartment. Downstairs, I grabbed coffee at a café two blocks away. The barista gave me a sympathetic look. Of course, I was the tired woman in a bathrobe at noon. I smiled weakly and took the steaming cup out onto the sidewalk. The fresh air hurt my lungs, in a good way. Normal felt both foreign and necessary.
I started the car, heading south away from the building. My phone buzzed while I was halfway home.
Malik: How about dinner tonight? Thai place on Pine. 7?
I stared at the mes
