They drove back to Northbridge together on the second of January, Cole's truck loaded with both their bags. Three weeks of careful distance from the rest of the world collapsing the moment they crossed back into the athlete complex parking lot and had to remember, again, how to be careful.
It was more challenging than it had been in November. That was the aspect no one had mentioned to her — that practicing honesty for twelve consecutive days in Duluth would make the return to secrecy feel less like a careful choice and more like a painful erasure, as if she were being asked to shrink back into a smaller version of herself after finally becoming comfortable with embracing her rightful space.
"You okay?" Cole asked, catching her staring at nothing over her cereal bowl on their first morni
