After slamming down the telephone on Cindy, Neil had managed to sober himself long enough to make the drive from Coronado to Imperial Beach in safety. No sooner had he turned the key in the door of his small, sparsely furnished studio, than he began to wail in frustration again, muffling his sobs with the heel of his hand so that no neighbor would hear him.
Neil was just twenty-one himself yet felt as though he were swiftly approaching death, in possession of a rare jewel that fit squarely in the palm of his hand and desperately fearful of losing what he’d found.
As he lay in bed that night, sleepless, a night terror of fears lurking underneath and overhead, Neil could see only one thing: Ryan. His focus trained thus, there was so much more—above and below and on either side—that he fail
