Page 113 of Wells

My hand moves before I decide to let it, reaching for the lid and the password and the trace my fingers know by muscle now.

I stop with them an inch off the edge.

If I find her, I find all of it, and if I find her with someone else I will burn the world down to reach her. I know that about myself as well as I know my own hands.

And tracing her is the thing that ended us. It's the proof she was right, the reason she looked at me and said she'd never trust me again and meant it in her bones.

I pull my hand back and lay it flat on the desk.

The not-knowing claws at me, and I let it. Sitting in it is the only thing I have left to give her, the one piece of decency I didn't already burn. She gets to be gone without me in her shadow.

I crush the cigarette and light the next one. The river slides black past the glass, and I watch it go.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Cera

The Forty Days: Lent sets aside forty days for the wilderness, for giving something up and going without until you can stand inside the lack. She let the apartment, the job, and every solid thing go, and learned she could breathe under nothing.

The apartment is picked over. It's the sad stage in between living and moving that makes everything look sort of depressing.

The couch sold first, then the coffee table and bookshelf. The walls show pale squares where frames hung. Boxes stacked against the baseboard hold everything I'm keeping, which isn't much. Three donation bags sit by the door, already tied shut.

I stand in front of the dresser and try to remember why I wanted it so badly. It's mid-century, solid oak with six drawers and clean lines. I saved three paychecks for it because I thought it would bring Zen to our apartment. It didn’t, and now I'm ashamed just looking at it. I've got it on Marketplace for a hundred bucks, a fraction of what I paid.

It's the last big thing to go.

My phone buzzes. Caroline, the buyer, texts that she's pulling up in my parking lot.

I grab the roll of tape and secure the bottom drawer. The woman knocks, and I open the door.

She's maybe twenty-five, ponytail, running shorts, the kind of easy confidence I used to have before everything broke.

"Cera?"

"Hey, Caroline. Come on in."

She walks to the dresser and runs her hand down the side.

"It's perfect."

"It held up. Careful with the top drawer. It sticks a little."

She nods and grips one side. I take the other. We tilt it back and shuffle toward the door. The thing weighs more than I remember. My fingers dig into the wood, and we angle it through the doorway without scraping the frame.

The hallway is narrow. We pause at the top of the stairs because we can't get it in the elevator. I remember that from when I bought it.

"On three," she says.

We lift in sync and start down. The dresser shifts between us, and I adjust my grip. My shoulder burns by the time we hit the landing.

"You moving far?"

"India. Leaving in two days."

She glances at me, surprised but not prying.

"Wow. That's cool."