The morning I stopped measuring the distance to the door was the morning everything else accelerated.
It did not announce itself with a grand declaration. It arrived in the ordinary gray light of a Wednesday, in the residual warmth of a bed I had slept in twice and the residual taste of coffee made by a man who still measured the grounds like the ratio could save a season. I woke before Damian, cheek against his chest, one of his hands resting open and loose at the small of my back. The hand did not tighten when I shifted. Even in sleep the lines held. I lay there listening to the steady engine of his heart and realized the old calculation—exit route, nearest unlocked door, exact number of steps to my shoes—had not run. The software had gone quiet. In its place was something simpler and m
