You were asking me to put a price on seven years of being lied to.

I knew that if I took it on those terms, you would remember yourself as generous and the matter as settled.

I needed my future to begin without that story.”

Outside, the sky had clouded over.

I walked past an old bicycle chained to the fence and saw a tiny handprint in drying cement near the entrance.

ELIAS, the letters said.

Beside it was another: ROSE.