I work until six P.M., with an hour off at lunch. It’s a long day, but OT is the closest to real money I’ll ever get, and again, I’m good with my hands and I don’t talk much, meaning bosses don’t mind having me around. After work, I walk home. Probably heat up ravioli for dinner. Watch Seinfeld on TV. Go to bed by ten.

I don’t go out. I don’t visit bars, I never catch a movie with friends. I sleep, I eat, I work. Every single day pretty much the same as the day before. It’s not really living. More like existing.

The shrinks have a term for it: pretend normal

It’s the only way I know how to live.

I take another bite of cereal, chew, swallow, and repeat.

More knocking on the front door.

Lights are out. My landlord, Mrs. H., is in Florida visiting her grandkids, and it doesn’t make sense to waste electricity on just me.

I set down the bowl of soggy cereal and the cop chooses that moment to turn on his heel and walk back down the front steps. I move to the other side of the kitchen, where I can monitor his progress as he moves on to my neighbor’s and bangs on the door.

Canvassing. The cops are canvassing the street. And they came from the north. So something happened, probably on this street, immediately to the north.

It comes to me, what I didn’t really want to think about, but what has been floating around in the back of my mind since the instant the alarm went off and I went to the bathroom and stared at my own reflection above the sink. The noise I heard right after I snapped off the TV last night. What I probably know that I don’t want to know, but now can’t get out of my head.

I give up on breakfast and sit down hard in a kitchen chair instead.

Six forty-two A.M. Today is not going to be pretend normal after all.

Today is going to be the real thing.

I have a hard time breathing. My heart races, I can feel my palms start to sweat. And I think so many things at once, my head begins to hurt and I hear someone groan and it confuses me until I realize it is myself.

Her smile, her sweet, sweet smile. The way she looks at me, as if I’m ten feet tall, as if I can hold the world in the palm of my hand.

And then, the tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, no, no. Please, Aidan, stop. No …”