On Monday morning, he called an eye doctor with an office in a strip mall close enough that he could ride his bike to it and made an appointment, knowing already he’d fail every single test they’d surely give him. That same afternoon, he showed up for summer practice only so he could quit the team, and he ignored every one of Coach’s shocked, confused protests, the same way he ignored Caitlin’s when he broke up with her only a few hours later.

He didn’t let himself think about the girl on the balcony at all.

He was seeing clearly now.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Sixteen years later

For Eleanora DeAngelo Clarke, the best time of day was, many people would argue, not daytime at all.

The best time of day was before dawn.

It was a fairly recent development, this fondness for 4:00 a.m. When she’d first come back, it hadn’t been so much a choice as a necessity, the demand of days that started early and stretched long, the fallout from frequently disrupted sleep. During those times, 4:00 a.m. had felt indistinguishable from every other hour of the day: darker in quality but not really in character, another part of the grim, human process of saying goodbye that she hadn’t felt—wouldn’t have ever felt—prepared to go through.

When it had been over, though, when the daylight hours became busier and more bureaucratic, when the reality of her new life had started to sink in—4:00 a.m. had started to transform for her. Sometimes, she’d do little more than sit and stare, a mug of hot coffee cupped in her palms, steaming straight into her puffy, tear-stained face. Sometimes, she rose from a restless, unsatisfying sleep and walked to the back door, sliding it open and taking a single step onto the balcony, breathing in the crisp, cold autumn air like it was medicine. Sometimes, she’d sit at the old rolltop desk in the living room, making lists to help her move through the day, to help her feel in control in this place where she’d never once, not in her whole life, had to be in control before.

But day by day, 4:00 a.m. took on a softer rhythm, and Nora moved to its beats with some improved version of those early, impulsive behaviors. In the pitch dark and perfect quiet, she sipped at her coffee and stayed inside when it was cold, letting her body and brain wake up slowly, softly. She left the lists to later, letting herself breathe. She let herself think and not think, remember and not remember. She let herself be.