Vronsky couldn’t contain the hope that was building within him. Anna had never uttered those words to him, not once had she said she loved him back. Hearing her speak them was like hearing all the angels in heaven put on a concert just for him. He crossed over to her and tried to sit beside her but she jumped up, recoiling from his touch.

“Get away from me!” she cried out in anguish. “It can never work! It’s too late for us. Everything is shit!”

“But it doesn’t have to be,” he said. “Anna, who cares what people think? I don’t! Fuck everyone but us. We love each other.”

“No, my father would never allow it. And I won’t go back to sneaking around and lying again. I can’t. That’s how this all began, with lies and betrayal. We were doomed from the very beginning!”

“You’re wrong!” Vronsky said. “We didn’t betray anything. We were loyal, Anna, loyal to our love for each other. And we’re not doomed, dammit! We don’t have to be doomed if we don’t want to be. We’re not living in the nineteenth century. Fuck all these stupid society rules of conduct. We have choices, we have free will, we can do whatever we fucking want.”

Again, he approached her. All he wanted was to hold this rain-soaked girl in his arms. She let him hold her, but only for a second before she started hitting him in his chest with her fists, crying hysterically, “No, no, no! It’s too late, Alexia!”

Suddenly, Vronsky felt himself ripped away from Anna. He hadn’t even heard anyone approach, but a pair of hands were pulling him away from his one true love. “Leave her alone!” a man roared. “She’s a good one! She’s a good one!” Anna recognized him immediately. Johnson, the homeless man whose lost dog they returned, was soaking wet, too, his filthy face streaked with sludge.

“No! Wait, you don’t understand!” Anna screamed.