No, the little voice in his head that sounded half like Ramona and half like Charlotte said. You stayed there because Anthony was staying and he told you it’d be fun if you were there. Then you had two job offers, one that was on-site and would’ve netted you colleagues and contacts, and one that was work from home, and you chose the one that was work from home. You chose the one that might as well have been anywhere and left you the freedom to pursue your own interests or chat with your friends about TDoZ during work hours.

Then you and Anthony broke up and you met Javon, and so on and so forth.

“Ugh. Me.”

Truman updated the spreadsheet he’d been working in, uploaded it to the client portal, and decided he needed to do something just for himself.

What did people do just for themselves?

Uh. Run? Yeah. People ran to, like, feel alive and feel their blood pumping, and…probably feel secure that they could outrun a murderer. Truman should run! He should use his time on this beautiful island to become a runner—it was perfect.

He changed his clothes and popped in his headphones and chose a playlist that someone on Spotify had named “MURDER YR HEART RATE,” so that sounded promising. Then he set off down the front path at a dead run.

The plan was to run to the beach. It would be such a great endpoint for his very first run. He’d take a picture of the waves lapping the rocky shore and caption it First run of what I’m sure will be many more. #Runninglife.

Since the way he’d reached the beach before was from Main Street, that was the direction he headed.

Running felt amazing. Running felt like flying!

By the third block, running no longer felt amazing. Running felt like dying.

He rounded the corner to Main Street gasping for air, then crossed the street.

One moment, he was upright, wondering Can lungs become shredded bags of air from gasping for breath? The next moment, his sole hit a patch of slush and he was pitching forward, airborne, into the street.

He landed with a splat that knocked the tiny amount of air still in his shredded lungs out of him and tried to scramble out of the street to avoid being run over by a car or trampled by a mule-drawn carriage, then remembered he wasn’t in New Orleans. He was on Owl Island, and there was no traffic and (probably) no mules.

Truman groaned and began the slow process of dragging himself upright and seeing if any part of him was broken, crushed, or missing.

After only a second, though, warm hands were on his face and a familiar voice was asking if he was okay.

Ash.

“I saw you go down through the front window,” he was saying, voice concerned.