"I needed the help in July. Now I need you to stop running yourself into the ground." She paused, that waiting silence again. "Something's wrong. And it's not just the anniversary."
My phone sat heavy in my apron pocket. I thought about the text that had come last week.
Unknown Number.
Miss you.
I'd deleted it immediately, told myself it was a wrong number, a coincidence, nothing.
Then another one, two days later.
Unknown Number.
Thinking about you.
Then yesterday:
Unknown Number.
You can't hide forever.
"Lucy." Joanna's voice pulled me back. "Talk to me."
I almost told her. The words were right there, pressing against my teeth:I haven't slept through the night in three years. I dream about smoke and hospital rooms and the two people I loved most in the world, and I wake up reaching for them, and they're never there. I miss my mother so much sometimes I can't breathe. I missMateo so much I've forgotten what it feels like not to miss him.
And my ex-boyfriend found me. The one I left before Mateo, the one who used to leave bruises where no one could see them. He's always drunk now. I can tell from the texts, the typos and the rage. And drunk Evan is dangerous Evan. He tracked me down in Denver, and I thought I'd lost him when I came here, but the texts started again and I don't know what to do.
"I'm just tired," I said. "The anniversary, like you said. It stirs things up."
Joanna's expression softened, but the worry didn't leave her eyes. "You know I'm here, right? When you're ready to talk about whatever's really going on."
I nodded. "I know."
She didn't push further.
"Take an extra fifteen," she said. "And eat something. You're too thin."
I wasn't hungry. Hadn't been hungry in weeks. But I said "okay" because it was easier than arguing, and I sat on my milk crate until my break was over, and I didn't look at my phone.
My shift ended at four. Joanna offered me a ride home, like she did every day, and I declined, like I did every day. The walk was only six blocks. And I needed the space between work and home, the quiettransition from the person I pretended to be and the person I actually was.
The September sun hung low over the mountains, painting everything gold and amber. The city looked like a postcard this time of day: the main street with its cheerful storefronts, the peaks rising green and ancient beyond the town limits, the particular quality of light that existed nowhere else on earth. My mother used to say the light here was different. Cleaner. Like the mountains filtered out everything harsh and left only the beautiful parts.
I had loved this town once, before Mateo, and even more with him. We were going to build a life here. We were planning to buy a house with a big porch. We were going to name our kids after our parents. That future seemed so certain I could almost touch it.
Now this place just felt like a graveyard of the life I should have had.
My apartment building was a converted Victorian on Oak Street, three stories of creaky floors and thin walls and rent I could actually afford. I climbed the front steps, dug my keys from my bag, and pushed through the main door.
The hallway smelled like old wood and someone's dinner: garlic, onions, something that reminded me of my mother's kitchen. I started up the stairs to the second floor.
And stopped.
He was standing at the top of the staircase, keysin hand, stepping out of the apartment directly across from mine.
It was him: Cal Bennett.
For three years, I'd managed to avoid him. After the funeral, I'd left West Valley Springs and sworn I'd never come back. Cal had been a voice on the other end of a phone call I'd never answered, a name on cards I'd never opened. Mateo's best friend. His captain. The man who'd been there when my fiancé died, who'd held him while the light left his eyes, who'd survived when Mateo hadn't.
