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I can do that.

One small thing, then another.

Dad used to say I had the patience of a saint when I worked on puzzles.

Mom says I’m obsessive.

I say sometimes the only way to survive something enormous is to cut it into pieces small enough to swallow.

An hour, then another, then my thirty-minute lunch break, then another two hours, then the bus, then home.

I’m trying not to think past the getting home part.

My phone sits face down on the table.

I’ve checked it seventeen times since arriving, but there have been no missed calls from the police, no unknown numbers, no messages saying they found Wade’s body, just Mom sporadically texting to see if he’s gotten in contact with me.

She thinks he ran off.

Thursday, when I finally got home wearing a gas-station sweatshirt with my wet clothes stuffed into a grocery bag, she took one look at me and asked why I looked like crap. Not where Wade was, not whether I was okay, but why I looked bad.

I told her Wade dropped me near the bus station. When she asked why, I said I didn’t know. She asked where he went, and I told her that he’d said he had something to do, and that was all I knew.

She asked why my clothes were different. I said someone splashed me with muddy water near a construction site.

By then, the lies were coming so easily that I understood why Mom tells them constantly.

Each one creates the need for another.

She called Wade six times while I stood in the kitchen, and each time it went straight to voicemail.

“He’s probably fucking Tasha again,” she seethed.

I didn’t answer.

Then she looked at me sharply and asked why I was shaking. I told her I was cold.

That night, she went to bed angry, and I didn’t go to bed at all.

Every time I closed my eyes, Wade died again. Sometimes exactly as he did. Sometimes differently.

Once, the man turned the gun toward me afterward.

Once, Wade’s face became Dad’s. That one made me throw up.

Last night was better; I slept for close to two hours.

I think that counts as improvement.

My phone vibrates, startling me into almost knocking my water bottle over.

It’s Mom again. She wants me to “tell him he needs to come get his shit” if I hear from him, because she’s “not playing this time.”

The break room door swings open, and I jerk, my knee painfully smacking the underside of the table.

Derek from produce steps inside, carrying two yogurts and a banana. He stops in his tracks, his worn sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.

“Whoa. You okay?”