The night felt endless, stretching out like a black ribbon with no beginning and no end, and I wandered those streets as if searching for some impossible place where I could feel untangled from the grief and fear that had clung to me for weeks, every shadow and flicker of movement in the dim streetlights reminding me, relentlessly, of him walking away, leaving me behind.
My phone lay dead in my pocket, forgotten along with the calls I hadn’t made to Annemarie or my mom, and I moved forward almost mechanically, my legs carrying me, my mind empty and full at the same time, filled with nothing but the echo of his absence and the way my chest ached with the knowledge that I had pushed him too far and perhaps permanently.
When I finally reached our front door, I realized I didn’t have my key
