I took absolutely no reference in the sky, nor did I bother to check my phone. Whatever time had passed, it hadn’t gone by slow enough for me to comprehend what had happened, nor was it fast enough so I could somehow find myself graduating college. It stood still. So desperately still. I didn’t even mind when the rain started to pour. It made it easier to walk the streets without bumping into as many people as I’d been doing all afternoon. They’d turned into mere silhouettes. Figures in a dream I had no business being in—somewhere I had cheated my way into, callously disrupting someone else’s space, barging in.

Eventually, I entered the park, walked up to a bench, and sat until the sky changed from gray to almost black, in a moonless dusk I couldn’t help but find alluring. Nothing made sense. It had gotten to a point where that feeling of tiredness was finally about to defeat me. But I didn’t let it. I couldn’t, not then. I made myself get up, forcing every thought out of my head except for one.

When I got to his building, I considered going up, but it felt…wrong, somehow. So, I decided to text him instead. I pulled out my phone, only unlocking it the third time I tried because my fingerprint was too wet.

“Are you at your dad’s?”

“I have been texting you all day, where have you been? Yes”

“Can you come down?”

“You’re here? <3 “

I watched the messages for the longest time, then texted, “Come down”

“Yes, sir!”

I could absolutely feel—with an acute awareness I didn’t know was possible—as every piece of me that I’d so carefully tried to put back together fell, one by one. The first had fallen when I heard Dr. Foster say his name, the second, not long after, when I thought about him finding out. Upon leaving her house, I continued to have pieces fall around the city, some of them I consciously realized had left me, others did so without me having any say in the matter. Now, as he opened the door and smiled at the sight of me, a bigger piece fell.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get sick,” he said, taking a step forward, cupping my face, and kissing me before letting his hands slide down my arms and find my wrists, trying to pull me inside.

God, I loved it when he kissed me.

But I stood my ground, making him instantly worry.

“What’s wrong?” He furrowed his brow.

“I, uh—I need to talk to you.”

“Well, come inside. Ros is here; she’ll love telling you about that constellation or whatever it was she wanted to tell you that day. Plus, you can meet my dad.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”