So, this was the cost of that free feeling each morning. Brutal. But there was enough hypocrisy built into life, one shouldn’t choose it. “I think this is good,” I rasped. “Yeah?” “Yeah.” We looked at each other in shock, like two people hovering in the air with nothing holding them up. No scaffolding, no strings, no wings—but not falling.

When she’d been retracing the walk she’d taken with him on that promise-filled dawn, she had been struck by how the exact same route could look and feel so different. One minute, Sam was there, the game was completed, and the world was filled with potential. Twelve hours later, Sam was gone, the game was far from her thoughts, and the world was gri

Now, when she looked back at even the recent past, the memories were covered by shadows. Her own experience was a lie.

I found myself shaking his hand warmly. Minutes later I was out on the street. A boy walked splay-footed across a public lawn, nudging a soccer ball before him. A second kid sat on the grass, taking off his socks by grabbing the heels and yanking. How literary, I thought peevishly. Streets thick with the details of impulsive life as the hero ponder