Sarah was basically right about David, he was not a competent agent, and in the wake of their meeting he became lost almost immediately when he turned right instead of left after leaving Sarah’s driveway. The houses looked exactly the same in that direction, but like someone had shuffled them around just to fuck with him, and he felt deeply provincial in that moment, so fundamentally mapped to his own neighborhood three traffic lights away that he was unable to cope with even the slightest difference. And, further, he felt as if his one opportunity for closure or vengeance or reconciliation (he wasn’t sure which he wanted) had just slipped away. By the time he found his way home he’d forgotten he’d invited anyone over, and by extension that anyone was waiting for him in his basement. He went up to his bedroom and fell into a dismal sleep with his earbuds in, a three-hour YouTube video playing, which ran deep into his REM cycle, wracking his dreams, until his phone died. His guests entertained themselves sans David and left the house shortly after nine, and David was never to know that for a time that afternoon his house was occupied without him, without anyone else’s knowledge. (He knew his mother would be appalled to learn that when she was out of town he routinely left the house unlocked.) It was a relatively normal day otherwise, but some paths didn’t cross where they might have.