City walking eventually became a substitute, though there were times, especially initially, when there were still so many strained conversations to be had with my parents (for example: what to do with that old Toyota, once I told them I wouldn’t be coming back), where all I’d want is an hour—thirty minutes, even—to be behind the wheel of a car. Going fast, wind in my hair, noise drowned all the way out.

After I leave Lark’s, I really, really wish I had a car.

I’m rattled, that’s the thing. For the rest of the afternoon, I run over those last few minutes in my mind, chastising myself for saying too much. I try to work, but that’s a comically terrible idea. Letters—speaking and unpredictable—are the last thing I want to look at.

I want fresh air and a break from the words I shouldn’t have said, and I want the kind of relief that only one person has made me feel in recent weeks.

So I call Reid.

“I guess I didn’t think about the—lack of signs,” I say to him now, as we stroll along my favorite part of Prospect Park, a curving path around Long Meadow. From here, you can look out over the vast expanse of green, the thick boundary of trees, and forget you’re in a city at all, and even as much as I was longing for fresh air myself, I picked this specific place for Reid. Because I thought he’d enjoy it.

“It’s fine.” While it’s not exactly curt, it’s not exactly warm, either. It’s not exactly, I’m really enjoying this nature walk and this hot tea you brought me. Beside me, he’s Masterpiece Theatre stiff, the jacket of his suit—dark, dark blue again—draped neatly over his arm, his slim-cut white dress shirt doing everything to recommend swimming laps. But he’s kept the sleeves down, buttoned at the wrists, still no concession to the warm air.

Maybe I’ve made a mistake, calling him—no matter that he’d texted me right back to tell me he’d come. No matter that he made me laugh with his reply, passing on my offer of a smoothie by telling me he preferred his fruit in “regular format.” No matter that he walked up the subway stairs and swoonshed, as though he’d been waiting to see my face all week. Whatever made him agree to come, it hasn’t been enough to chase away what I’m sensing is an awfully bad mood.

“No game, though,” I say, and even to my own ears my voice sounds false, almost manic in its effort to stay light, to pressure valve my way out of this frustrating, tension-filled day. “Maybe we can play—”

“Meg,” he interrupts. “Are you okay?”