Ch. 1: A Stranger in the Rain

The city never really slept, and tonight neither did he.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Emily said. "I'm asking you to listen." She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

"You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Emily said. "I'm asking you to listen."

The truth, when it finally came, was smaller and sharper than she had imagined.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to.

And somewhere beneath the fear, quiet and stubborn, something like hope began to grow.