Chapter 1 Now

We used to look at each other like that. Before you went and messed everything up.

The man wraps a scarf around the smiling woman's neck, then leans in and kisses the tip of her nose. I force my eyes from the store window and keep walking. Maybe another mile will do it—will clear my head so I can think properly. Figure out what to do with the rest of my day. The rest of my life.

Another block, then two. I stop behind a dozen people at the crosswalk. A woman checks the time on her phone, a child sways under the weight of his backpack full of books, a businessman in a five-thousand-dollar suit spews into his phone about some deal gone bad.

He's angry. Probably needs therapy. Most of us do. Myself included.

Myself especially.

A teenage girl smokes a joint as she bops along to the buds in her ears. A twentysomething wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt pretends he's not freezing his ass off.

One thing stands out that makes them different from me—they all seem to have somewhere to go.

Then again, I probably look like I do, too. I'm good at pretending these days, aren't I?

But soon they'll be home with their families or their dog or their video game, and I'll still be out here walking. Searching for something, though I don't know what. I still have my wits enough to know that means I might never find it.

Maybe I should get a dog. That would at least give me a purpose for all this walking. Of course, I'd have to feed it. Drag myself out of bed early every morning to take it outside so it doesn't ruin the carpets. Give it love and affection.

I swallow a lump in my throat. I'm not capable of committing to any of those things. Especially the last one.

The light changes, the wave of people surges forward, and I let it carry me across the street. I turn a corner at random, and seconds later I'm among brownstones. I slow my pace, and another walker brushes against me, hurrying. Another person with a place to be.

A breeze ruffles through the leaves, and the yellow and orange colors of a ginkgo tree rain down around me. We almost lived here in Gramercy Park, in one of these very brownstones. With a foyer painted in sky blue and an office window facing the city. If we'd chosen this home, instead of the apartment, would things have been different? Would that one choice have made ripples through our lives, and you'd be standing next to me right now?

I let myself imagine it. It's the sort of neighborhood where people raise families. Maybe we'd have a baby by now. Maybe I'd have taken a year off. Maybe I'd have paid more attention and noticed how bad things with you really were. If you were still here, you'd probably be on the road right now—off playing a game in Michigan or Canada. My practice would be thriving, instead of crumbling. Maybe we'd have hired an au pair. Maybe… just maybe.

That breeze comes again, slicing through my open overcoat. I yank it closed, tie the belt tighter. I've been out for hours, and I should go home. But why?

Tree branches sway, and a fresh tide of leaves skims over my shoes. A rogue yellow one blows up and tangles into my hair. I reach up to pull it out and a cab rushes by mere inches away, creating wind that slaps me in the face. Shoot. I didn't even see that red light. I step backward to the curb and bump into a person behind me, nearly falling.

"Ma'am? Are you okay?"

A twentysomething in a Burberry trench, a two-year-old on her hip in a matching jacket and pigtails, and another little one tucked into a vintage pram sucking her thumb.

A ripple, a glimpse of what could have been. What will never be anymore because of you.

I reach into my coat pocket and rub my keychain. Your keychain. The one that reminds me of all our hopes and dreams. It soothes me. As much as I can be soothed these days.

"Ma'am?" The woman I already forgot about steps closer. "Are you all right?"

I look away, her little family too close to my imaginings for comfort. "Fine. Thanks."

I go back the way I came, walking faster now. Fleeing. Fleeing what? It doesn't matter. I stare down at the gray concrete, then up at the gray sky. A shop window reflects back at me—a pale, narrow face, too much cheekbone, too much chin. Hollow eyes, once bright green, have gone dull. They look gray, too. I should get highlights, perk up my dishwater-blond hair.

A bell jangles over the next shop door, pulling my attention. A young couple sits in the window, all sheepish smiles and hands wrapped around paper coffee cups. I duck in, file into line, lost in the anonymity of the city once more.

I blink around. I've never been here, on this corner, in this coffee shop. Or maybe it's new. The world has been changing around me over the last year, and I haven't taken notice.

The line moves forward, and I let it pull me along. You would have hated this place. The overly bright lighting, the din of thirty or so people chatting, the hiss of a barista foaming milk, the whirr of the grinder. Paying seven bucks for a coffee.

"Good afternoon. What can I get you?" A woman with a gummy smile and a blond ponytail is a little too eager to take my order.

"Coffee. Black, please." I hand over cash, accept change, and shuffle down the line, eyes lingering over a cranberry-orange scone. I try to remember if I've eaten today.

"Meredith? Coffee, black," a voice rings out.

I pull off a glove to pick up the paper cup and let the warmth seep in through my skin as I scan the room for an open table. There's only one, near the front of the shop, looking outside. It gives me something to focus on, at least. People swarm the sidewalks, tourists gaping up at the tall buildings with shopping bags in hands and locals grumbling as they're forced to weave through them. Hundreds of people come and go in only minutes. It's a sea of ambiguity, face after face after face, until they all start to blur.

But then… there's a flash of familiarity. A face I know in the crowd.

I lean forward, ignoring the table digging into my ribs as I stare at the man. My hand comes to my chest when recognition turns to dismay. And my heart gallops off wildly.

It can't be him.

Can it?

Olive skin, dark beard, lean build. He smiles—lips curled up as he talks into his phone. Then laughter, the sort that rocks his whole chest as he tilts his head up, smiling at the sky. This man wouldn't laugh—couldn't laugh. After all, he's been through worse than I have.

I squeeze my cup too hard and coffee sloshes over the edges, scalding my hand. Pain radiates across my skin, and I look down at my pink flesh.

It feels good. The sting floods me with an odd sense of relief.

It's not a normal response. I'll probably spend hours overanalyzing it at some point. But right now… my attention is back to the window. He's way more interesting.

I'm out of my chair, dumping my barely touched coffee into the nearest garbage, and through the jangling door in seconds. The man strides down the sidewalk, walking between gaps in pedestrians, making it easy to track him. Easy to—I jolt forward—follow him.

It's akin to following a ghost.

Except he's not the one who died.

They are.

We are stuck here. In limbo.

Me. And him.

Gabriel Wright. The last time I saw him, I felt almost exactly as I do now. Numb. Distant. Unbelieving. That night.

I slip my hand into my pocket again, reaching for your keychain to help shake away the bad memories. But there's no time to soothe myself now because I'm falling behind. So I speed up, give chase. Gabriel turns a corner, hands stuffed in his pockets. He's leaving Gramercy, heading south toward the East Village. We're not the only two striding this way. I step behind three women, oversize shopping bags hung over elbows like trophies they're bringing back from a hunt. Tourists. They're the perfect blind for my own hunt.

I want to know what he's doing, where he's going. Why he's here of all places, and most of all—I flash back to his face, laughing, smiling—is he really happy? Happy enough to laugh. To feel joy, after what you did.

Gabriel stops at a newsstand up ahead. A rush of suited office workers flood the sidewalk coming out of a building. It's after seven now. I've been outside since noon, wandering. I should go home. Order in some food, find a way to spend my time—

But I can't force myself away from him. I press my phone to my ear to block my face as he scans the sidewalk, waiting for his turn. He holds up a hand, uses his phone to pay for a pack of cigarettes—some brand in a white package—and shoves them into a pocket.

An urge to get closer hits me. He probably wouldn't recognize me. We never met, not formally anyway. No. We just went through hell together, several rooms apart.

You in one room.

His wife and child in another.

I swallow the acid rising in my throat, the consequence of coffee on an empty stomach and stressing while speed-walking down the sidewalk after a man I should steer clear of.

Gabriel stays at the newsstand a moment longer. Smiling again. Chatting up the man who works behind the counter.

I step back, lean against the brick of a building, and pull out a tiny notebook, the one I keep my to-do list in. I haven't written in it in weeks, maybe months. No point in a to-do list when there's nothing to do. But now, I scribble.

Gabriel Wright.

I double-check the time on my phone like it's a critical piece of information and go back to writing.

Thursday, 7:13 p.m.

Walking on East 15th Street. Stops at newsstand on corner.

Smoker.

Laughing. Smiling. Happy?

That last word gives me pause. These days, the idea of happiness is like a fable or a fairy tale. A dream every little girl growing up in a screwed-up house wants to be a part of, but knows deep in her heart is just make-believe.

Gabriel offers a warm smile to the newsstand man and turns his back to saunter off in a loose amble, like he hasn't a care in the world. I want to grab him and scream, "Are you really happy?" or maybe, "I know you're pretending. You're just better at it than me. It's not possible you're whole again. Not after what we did to you."

It doesn't make sense.

He doesn't make sense.

My breath catches in my throat as his strides quicken. I have to keep following. No, I need to keep following. I'm suddenly driven by purpose for the first time in months. A craving opens up wide inside me, something that could swallow me whole. How? Why?

I glance behind me as I step back into the crowd and lock eyes with a young woman with long blond hair and an armful of books. She looks like she's going to say something, but then I realize she's probably just hoping I'll get the hell out of her way. Like everyone else except me in this city, she's in a hurry. Though now I have purpose, too.

For the first time since you.

I don't know where I'm going, or what happens when I get there.

But I know I must follow him.