10

She swallowed the fries. “Same—except I’m an only child, neither of my parents are pilots, and I grew up in southern Maine.”

“Portland?”

“Falmouth.”

“Even nicer,” I said. I knew the area well, as I’d flown into Portland many times and checked out the surrounding cities. “There’s a corner store in Falmouth. I can’t remember the name, but it has the best whoopie pies I’ve ever tasted.”

“Nina’s Variety, and you’re right; they do.”

Her lips parted as she lifted the gyro and took a bite.

A mouthful so big, it made me proud of her.

Alix was cool.

Much more than just a pretty face.

This girl had substance.

She had a story.

It was one I wanted to hear.

And one I wanted to be a part of.

“I want to do this again,” I said.

“Me, too.”

Once I got up, I reached down to help her stand. “You ready for dessert?”

She showed me her sandwich, which she’d only eaten half of. “I don’t think I can fit in another bite.”

“Find the room.” I tossed her gyro into a trash bin along with the rest of mine and the empty bowl of fries. Then, I placed my hand on her lower back and led her toward the entrance of Quincy Market. “I’m about to feed you some chocolate cake that will blow your mind.”

Her laugh was sweet this time. “I believe you.”

“You do like chocolate, don’t you?” I opened the door for her to enter, and I walked in behind her. It was then that I realized I hadn’t asked if she liked gyros or the vegetables they’d put on her sandwich or even French fries.

“It’s my favorite,” she replied.

Damn it.

I liked her even more now.

Ten

Alix

Present Day

I arrived at the police headquarters several minutes before my shift started and went straight to my desk, immediately logging into the system.

I hadn’t come early to pick up overtime. I had come to read the notes the paramedics had left in Joe’s file.

Regardless of what they said, I wouldn’t change the way I’d handled things last night.

It was a moment.

One I’d celebrated.

But I needed to know if the paramedics agreed with my assessment, so I typed Joe’s name into the search bar and watched his chart load. I skimmed all the stats the medics had entered—visible symptoms, vitals, the medication that had been administered.

They’d treated him for an overdose.

When they’d dropped him off at the hospital, he’d been alive and semi-responsive. I didn’t have access to whatever had happened once he was there.

But what I had come to see was if their evaluation matched mine.

And it did.

I’d done everything right.

I found myself taking a deep breath, my lungs feeling looser than they had all day. Air began to pass through even easier as I reread their notes a second and third time, finally comfortable enough to exit his chart.

I still had a few minutes before I needed to clock in, but I did anyway, and I put on the headset. Then, I clicked the screen that allowed me to answer inbound calls, and one came through almost immediately.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” I said.

And then it was back.

The ritual.

Inhaling wasn’t so easy anymore.

My thumb tapped the space bar.

My body tensed.

My toes ground into the bottom of my shoes.

“My husband!” an older woman shouted into the phone. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

I relaxed again, knowing that feeling would be brief and that I’d be repeating this process every few minutes for the next eight hours.

Tonight was a full moon.

The city would be even wilder.

Call counts would double.

Non-emergencies would turn life-threatening.

A shiver passed through me as I responded, “Help is on the way, ma’am.” I sucked in some air. “What’s your name, please?”

As she answered, I quickly glanced out the window, seeing the last speck of daylight.

It had been a sunny day.

I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

Eleven

Alix

Present Day

I wasn’t sure what time it was when I opened my eyes.

It didn’t really matter.

Sun was coming through the blinds in the bedroom, and I could feel it on my face.

It was the perfect way to wake up after last night, one of the most draining shifts I’d ever worked.

My chest was tight from all the times it had been hard to take a breath.

The side of my thumb was raw from continuously tapping it on the space bar.

My muscles were sore from tensing them.

My toes ached from grinding them into the bottom of my shoes.

And my heart throbbed as I looked over at the other side of the bed.

There was no indent in the pillow. The comforter was still pulled up to the top.

He hadn’t come home.

Goddamn it.

I grabbed his pillow and flung it across the room.

I needed him here.

He knew that.

It killed me every time he didn’t show up.

I pushed myself higher in the bed, and my back slammed against the headboard. I reached for my phone, and just as I was about to open my Contacts and make a call, my thumb accidentally hit an app.

Pictures began to fill my screen.

So did notifications.

A few hundred of them.

Some were likes. The rest were emojis.

All were in response to the photo I’d posted earlier today.

During my walk home from the train station, I’d come across a rainbow made of chalk that a child had drawn on the sidewalk. As I had snapped a shot of it, the sun had shone over my hand and the phone, creating a shadow of my body behind the picture.

My followers knew all about sunny days.

I’d been sharing them more often.

But none had ever included a rainbow.

I scrolled through the comments under the picture and saw one from Rose.

It was a picture of a fist.

A moment.

She was right.

I filled my lungs, my chest almost feeling bruised, and I pressed an icon on the bottom of the screen. I wasn’t sure what made me do it, but I typed Smith Reid, and I hit Search.

Only a handful of matches came up.