Walking along the cottage path, she was still sticky with sweat from running down the driveway and then up again. Zanne remembered with shame the rash on Gaby’s face, but not the things she’d said to produce it. She needed a shower. She needed to wash the meanness off. For the millionth time, Zanne missed her mom. When she was little, they used to shower together, and her mom would blunt the force and heat of the spray with her own body, leaving only a gentle mist to fall over Zanne. Afterward, she scooped her up in a towel and carried her warm and exhausted to bed. Nothing—not bathing or sleeping or loving someone—was ever so automatic after her mom was gone.

And now she’d lost Gaby, too. No one Zanne had ever loved had stuck around, because she was too fucked up. She’d thought when she came here she could finally fix herself. Financial stability was the key to it all. She’d told herself in the beginning that she would try to last four years, long enough to fully vest her 401(k). She couldn’t believe that she would soon have a retirement fund, with a corporate match no less. Four years came and went, and new goals presented themselves. There was always more to reach for, if she could hack it. Just a little longer and she could get a new truck that actually started. Just a little longer and she could pay off her student loans. Just a little longer and she could buy that house in Mar Vista. All the while, she was losing herself. She was hollowing out, forgetting how to make things, how to dream, how to love.

In the craftsman cottage, the door to Ted’s office was closed. Zanne knocked and let herself in.

Ted was on his knees, fishing something—his secret snacks?—out of the cabinet behind him. He climbed back into his chair, holding a box of Macallan, picked up a glass from his desk and held it up to the waning light. He tipped the last of whatever had been in it, probably cucumber water, down his throat. Now the glass was empty.

“Sorry, I don’t see another glass,” Ted said. “If you can find one for yourself...”

“That’s okay.”

“No really. Join me, please. It’s been a hell of a day.”