The minute he opened the door, he regretted it. It was the girl from the po’boy shop. The girl who Sara said had stopped by earlier. He’d already forgotten her name, yet she was standing on his doorstep, big, wet tears in her eyes and her arms crossed tightly on her chest. She had a giant army green purse over her shoulder, diagonally so that she didn’t have to hold it, yet she was still clutching it in front of her.

This was going to take tact. Something he wasn’t all that great at. “Hey, this is a, uh, surprise. How are you?” he asked, hoping to feel out exactly why she was there.

“How do you think I am?” she asked, her voice high and shrill. “I’m awful. I’m sucky. You’re just standing there looking at me all politely and you have a woman living with you. I’m in love with you and you have a woman living with you.”

Not knowing where to go with that, Gabriel shook his head, keeping his voice even and, he hoped, soothing. “I’m not sure why that would matter to you. You and I . . . we said hello a few times. We didn’t have a relationship beyond that.”

“Yes, we did.” Her voice was trembling now. “It was there, in the way you looked at me, in the way you touched me. And I felt it. When I met you, I knew that you were it for me. I met you and that was it, do you know what I mean?”

Gabriel felt absolutely awful. He couldn’t even remember her name, and she was declaring that her life had altered when meeting him. It was a burden he despised, one that he resented, loathed, felt the injustice of over and over. Why should someone else be punished for his sins?

There was no answer, only the echo of the question in his head, and the feeling that there was something he was missing, something he was supposed to know, to learn, to solve. An end.

“I do know what you mean, and that’s really flattering, but I’m not worth it, honestly. I don’t deserve these feelings you have for me.” Gabriel wanted to touch her, to reassure her, but that would be a mistake. That would only encourage her.

She was weeping now, her nose red and dripping, tears streaming down her face. Swiping at her cheeks with the canvas of her purse, she said, “Don’t do that. Please, God, don’t do that.”

“Do what?” he asked, wishing he knew how to free her, how to just make it all go away.