I don’t know how long I sit on my couch, frozen in shock, but I know that by the time I move again—minimally, only to grab the remote for the TV—the light outside is waning and dusky. Beside me, my phone continues to light at regular intervals—unknown number after unknown number, and every time, my stomach leaps and turns with stress. It could be Reid, I think, every single time, but that hope didn’t serve me well the first four times I answered and found myself immediately confronted with a reporter.

Confrontation after confrontation, living in every corner of that phone.

But not the one I’m desperate to have.

Notification after notification.

But not the one I’m desperate to get.

He doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. He doesn’t e-mail. It is profoundly clear that he is not at home.

All I can do is wait.

I need to deal with my clients. I need to call Cecelia, Lachelle. Lark, my God. What must Lark, who guards her privacy so completely, be thinking? And I didn’t think I had much chance at all with Make It Happyn after today’s presentation—my gorgeous, not-what-they-wanted sketches—but now? Now I’m sure the idea of hiring Meg Mackworth exists somewhere on a continuum of never and not if she were the last hand-letterer in the whole, entire universe.

I think of running. A rental car, my hastily packed bag. Some way to simply . . . go. To get away from this awful exposure, this hidden thing I don’t want to face. Every time I try to move, though, something—something—makes me stay.

The television lights up the darkening room, and I flip through the channels until I find it, coverage of the Coster arrest. The story seems to repeat at regular intervals, on a rotation with the day’s other biggest news stories. When I see it for the fifth time—the room around me totally dark now—I very nearly have the visuals memorized. First, Coster himself, being led out of the building, his eyes cast down, his gray hair mussed. Then, stills of him in happier, more successful times—shaking hands with the mayor, smiling on the red carpet on the night of a New York City ballet opening, posed with his wife on the steps of the Met. Next comes his mug shot, then a clip from outside his Upper East Side home, which was apparently also raided this afternoon.

And then comes Reid.

There’s a single clip of him, and I can only guess it’s played on every local station. For this one, the chyron is dark blue, and the lettering identifying Reid is slim, all caps, white. it reads, and I’m relieved, at least, that the television media isn’t going with blaring, base “scorned fiancé” headlines.