I’m not surprised by him letting something nonsensical slip out in the midst of everything. But I can’t seem to move on from that one sentence in particular.

A knock sounds on my door, and I snap out of my reverie. Clearing my throat, I stand up, feeling stiff. A glance in the mirror shows me the glaring, red spot on my cheek where it was pressed to the floor, and I try to shield it with my hair. After pulling the door open, I’m faced with Audrey, looking more fresh faced than I’ve seen her in a while.

“Hey.” She sweeps over my appearance. “Were you sleeping?”

“Kind of. What’s up?”

“I’m going downtown—shocking, I know. But I need to get out of this house for a while, and I won’t do it unless I have a purpose. Do you want me to pick up anything?”

Guilt tugs on my heartstrings, and I bite the inside of my lip. “Downtown?” I repeat, and she nods. “Would you mind having some company?”

Surprise flickers across her features, though she works to mask it. Audrey and I haven’t exactly spent a whole lot of time together since I came home from the hospital. Sure, she’s given me rides to and from school most days, but outside of that, we never seem to have a proper chance to talk. I know we fought a lot in the past, and she’s had to be the bigger person and set that all aside. I wonder if there are still things she resents me for.

Maybe I’m offering to go with her for selfish reasons, as if being kind to her will wash away my sins.

“Oh,” she says, after a pause. “I mean, if you want to come with.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting out of the house too.”

Audrey backs away from my bedroom door, and I quickly change and make myself look more presentable. I find myself thinking again how strange this all must be for her. For everyone. When they look at me, they see the same face they’ve always seen, but there’s a different person behind it now. At least, I tell myself I’m a different person.

There’s no other way for me to reconcile what I’ve done in the past.

After I’ve thrown on my woolen peacoat and Audrey has donned her wide-brimmed hat, we file out of the house and into her car. She flicks on the radio then turns it down, gentle coffee shop tunes filling in the gap between us. The sky is a pale grey, as it most often is, but there are no rain clouds in sight. It’s actually starting to feel more like spring, despite the overcast weather. As I look out the window, I sense Audrey peering at me out of the corner of her eye.