An hour later, all traces of the sexy party-girl version of herself were gone except the lingering sparkle in her eyes. She had planned to take a car back to Greenwich when she left the club, but instead she started walking. Her dad would have been ripshit if he knew she was walking around alone in the dark, but as it was five in the morning the streets were totally empty. She had never experienced the city this way before, and she found it quite beautiful in its silence. Bundled up in a Loro Piana cashmere coat, Anna was now on the first train of the morning, which was mostly empty. She picked a window seat, put her feet up on the seat across from her, and yawned. When the train emerged out of the tunnel into the early morning daylight, she found herself feeling a little blue. She pulled out her phone, which she had ignored all evening, and saw that she had several missed calls from Alexander and two voice mails, which quickly brought her back to reality. She texted Alexander to tell him she was on the train heading back to Greenwich to see her dogs and go to bed, letting him know she’d call him whenever she woke up. Normally she added a heart emoji to the texts she sent him, but this time she sent her text without one. Such a small detail, she was sure he wouldn’t even notice.

When she looked out the window, she saw that it was snowing again. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass, watching the snowflakes until she fell asleep with a dreamy smile on her face.

She awoke with a start when the train jolted to a stop. Disoriented for a moment, Anna looked out the window to see the snow had turned to freezing rain. They weren’t stopped at a station but were delayed on the track. Her car was empty except for one other person, who was asleep and snoring. She stood up, wondering what was going on, and decided to find out. In the next car over she found a uniformed employee who informed her that the heavy, wet snow had caused a tree branch to fall on the tracks ahead of them and there would be a slight delay while they waited for someone to clear the debris.