a

t for another hour. My brain had decided the best use of the dark was to

the second pass and swore under my breath, then held it under the kitchen tap, almost grat

it dropped me at the train, and from there it was another fifty minutes of the 2 rumbling toward Midtown while the city slowly woke up around me. Somewhere around the third stop I fell asleep standing up w

a drink I didn't even like, but walking into a sixty-story building with empty han

e security guard looked at the badge clipped to my blazer, then at my face, then back a

r," he said. "

confident than it felt. It didn't. My stomach was do

of his mouth twitched. "Mr. C

My voice cracked on the last word, a

aving me toward the eleva

limb, and the laugh died somewhere around floor twenty. By forty, my palms were so sweaty the

've survived worse t

d open on sixty, I lifted my chin and walked out anyway,

ne wedged against her shoulder and three folders open in front of her. She looked me over in o

n't speak unless he speaks first. Black coffee, no sugar, on his

me out so small I alm

hing in her face loosened, just a little. "Kitchen's down th

uch a tiny, ordinary kindness, and I wasn't used to those. I nod

early to knock, my knuckles an inch from the wood and my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth. I couldn'

tor dinged. I jumped up so fast

past my desk withou

l in a leather chair that was way too big for me. He didn't look at me, and he didn't look at the c

s Sm

e before he finish

and tell him nothing about why." He didn't look up from the folder. "Then pull

s,

stio

list in my head, rehearsed on the bus

, s

of his mouth, too quick to nam

roperly until the

r hundred pages is a long time to stand and hold yourself together. Somewhere around page two hundred my stomach growled so loudly in that sile

breakfast. It was easier to stop wanting

Then I deleted every sentence that wasn't pulling its weight, until it was so c

n the page and didn't dare look at anything else, not the window, not the skyline, not the s

bottom and se

ror in the thi

gh ringing, and underneath it, in the voice I had never

sir, I'll fix i

he said. "The date isn'

d checked it against the file. He was right. March. I'd be

orrect

ched the door, without lifting

pped.

y from your desk." The pen in his hand nev

th the page crum

n years like I was a window. Not the boarding school, where I'd eaten alone by the glass because the cafeteria

. A flat, cold order he hadn't

o fast I had to st

I managed.

er. I hadn't e

I couldn't swallow the first bite. My eyes burned. Then I laughed, a wet, ridiculous sound, because here I was, a grown

eep staff

I turned that sentence over and over in my head like a coin I'd found on the sidewalk, and i

every