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“Okay.”

No where are you going. No want company. No text me so I know you’re good. Nothing.

I grab my keys from the counter.

At the door, I look back.

She’s still on the couch, face lit by the TV, tablet on her knees.

For a second, I want to go back. Sit closer. Put my head in her lap like I used to when we were both younger and I still thought needing comfort was something you could make cute.

“I won’t be long.”

Behind me, Becca doesn’t ask me to stay.

The car heads toward Iroquois Park like it knows me better than I do.

The air through the cracked window is hot and damp. Louisville summer at night. Everything still sweating after dark.

I take the road through the park, winding upward to the top of the hill. The headlights catch trees and patches of black road shining where the humidity sits. The park feels different after sunset. Bigger and less friendly. At night, it becomes corners and paths and parked cars with engines running.

At the Overlook, there are three cars in the lot. Just enough to make the place feel occupied by people who also don’t want to be asked why they’re here.

I park under a tree and sit for a second with the engine off.

My phone is in the cupholder. No notifications.

I hate that I check. I hate more that there’s nothing to see.

I get out, and the night presses against my skin. Crickets in the grass. A distant car on the road below. Somewhere, a laugh from one of the other parked cars, low and quick, then cut off.

I walk the path toward the edge. The city opens beneath me.

Streets, houses, buildings, traffic moving in tiny streams. Downtown shining farther out, bridges lit over the river. From up here, everything looks arranged. Like people down there know where they belong and how to get back.

I sit on the big rock at the end of the path, the stone still warm from the day, and just look.

I try to think about Paul. His shiny lawyer. His house full of pool boys and money. I try to get angry again because anger is something I can wrap my hands around.

But my brain keeps sliding to Bentley. Which is stupid, because Bentley is not real. Not in the way Paul is real. Or money. Or anger.

I dig the heel of my hand against my eye.

“Get it together,” I mutter.

A twig snaps somewhere behind me.

A man walks out from the path, slow enough not to startle me, though he already has. Older than me by a good stretch. Attractive in a lean, runner way, in jogging shorts and a tank top darkened with sweat. He carries a water bottle in one hand.

“Beautiful night,” he says.

I nod once. “Yeah.”

He comes closer, but not right up on me. He knows safe distance.

“City always looks smaller from here.”

“Guess so.”