Chapter 8: Cedar

The studio was on the ninth floor of a glass building, and Chiara arrived ten minutes early.

Dr. Coombs had said work might help.

An architecture firm had hired her to draw renderings three years ago, and her old supervisor had held her place the whole time she was gone.

Nobody at the front desk asked where she had been.

They said, "Welcome back, Chiara," and a girl in the corner brought her coffee.

She had come to understand that this was the shape of her life: kind people who knew less than she did and did not ask.

It was Tuesday.

Four days had passed since the clinic, and Elio had stayed exactly three steps away on every one of them.

He was in the lobby now, across the marble, reading a newspaper he was not reading.

She did not look at him.

She stepped into the elevator at lunch with her pencil case and a sandwich.

A man in a gray coat got in behind her and pressed twelve.

He smelled of cedar and cold air.

Her breath caught, and she did not know why.

Chiara put a hand on the rail.

The doors closed.

She was standing in a field, in June, in the noise of a crowd.

A stage far off, hot dog smoke, a line that bent around three food trucks.

A hand on her sleeve.

"Please, Chiara. Just this once. I'll wait right here, I promise."

A slight girl, sixteen, big eyes, light brown curls.

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