Maybe he finally read the sincerity in my voice. And maybe I was starting to tear up. Okay, not maybe, definitely. And he saw it. Tears for Angela, tears for him, tears for everything that had been lost. His glare softened. He was about to say something—but then I heard a voice behind me.

“C’mon,” the guy behind me in line said, “some of us have places to be!”

I could have taken him out at that moment. Just put all my emotions behind a fist, and knocked that guy halfway to next week’s specials. But who the hell knew what next week would be? Instead, I controlled myself. I wiped my eyes before the tears rolled down my face. I fumbled with my wallet and shoved my card into the reader.

Then Leo said, “I get off when I get off. If you’re still waiting outside when my shift is over, I’ll talk to you. Now leave.”

That was the best I was going to get, and it was good enough. I took my pointless groceries, and I went to my car. I waited there for hours. Long past sunset, listening to music I didn’t like, in a car I shouldn’t own.

I almost missed Leo when he came out. He certainly wasn’t looking for me. To Leo, I was just a weird blip in his day that probably got him a scolding from his manager. A nuisance best forgotten. He was halfway across the parking lot by the time I spotted him. It was dark now. I got out of my car and called to him. He turned, acknowledging that he heard me, but just kept on walking. I caught up with him at a bus stop. He was sitting, waiting for a bus, and actively ignoring me. I didn’t sit down—I felt like I needed to earn the right to intrude on his airspace—although, to be honest, I was already a pretty uninvited intrusion.

“So you stayed all day waiting for me to get off work?”

“I did,” I told him. “I would have waited longer. I would have waited all night if I had to.” I had hoped that would impress upon him how legitimate I was—how important this was to both of us. Instead it just came off as weird.

“Either you’re not right in the head, or there’s something seriously wrong with you,” he said. It made me laugh, because that was something Leo would say back in the world where we were friends.

“Sit down,” he invited. “You’re making me nervous.”

So I did. I sat next to him.

“Tell me why you’re here,” he said, “and if there’s anything I don’t like about it, I walk.”

“I thought you were taking a bus.”

Normally Leo would call me a smartass for that, but instead he just said, “Point taken.”