But that tiny moment passed, and the door had shut, severing the cords that bound me to him, and suddenly my feet were free, my breath came clear and strong, and I jumped into the air as high as I could and fairly skipped through the cold, clear air of Westwater, flying with the freedom of the newly unburdened. Again I resolved, no more entangle­ments. I had a commitment, one comfortable com­mitment, a tightly bound agreement that anchored my soul to the forces that be, and that one was enough.

I heard my boot heels echo off the exterior walls of the houses, and then the buildings, as my stride took me confidently toward the bus station, where I bought a bus ticket to a warmer clime.

“When Angelina left Westwater, I knew it. I felt her drawing away from me as if she were draining out my life. The attraction between us was more powerful than anything I’d ever heard of. I tried to keep busy—I tried to go hunting, I tried to work, but she’d ruined me. She’d ruined me. I felt that if we could just sit down and talk, if I could really just talk to her, to find out more about her and the way she thought, then maybe I could let her go her own way.

“But she was too damned different. I’d known some different people before, but Angelina was differ­ent in a way that was so opposite that we matched. Like two halves of something torn apart, the terrain of her soul seemed exactly the opposite of my own. And I thought we would fit together, if we could, and make a whole.

“When I thought about her sitting right there next to me in the truck, after killing those people, and then trying to tell me that maybe Danny had asked for it, at first I was furious. I mean, how dare she? And then I was amazed that she could do that. Kill someone, I mean, and be curious about people’s reactions, instead of remorseful. Curious! Shit. I’ve felt funny about shooting a rabbit for dinner ever since Dad and Kyle and Bill hung up their shotguns. And then I was a little afraid. Afraid for the others out there, afraid, in retrospect, that maybe she could have killed me, right there in front of the movie theater. And wrapped a towel around my neck. Or in that field instead of old Mr. Simpson. But I knew she would never kill me. She would never kill me.

“And then I was lonely. I was lonely for whatever it was that she sucked out of me when she left, leaving an empty hole in my gut. I just wanted to sit her down and talk to her for a while. For my own sanity.