I know you didn’t get off.” My heart slammed against my ribs.

“You were waiting at the stop?” “I came down to meet you,” he said, and the warm, easy charm I had loved for eight months was simply gone, peeled off like a sticker, and underneath it was something flat and hard.

“Turn around and come back.

Now.

And stop letting a little kid decide what grown adults do.” I hung up without another word.

And instead of turning around, I walked Abigail off at the next stop and straight into a bright, busy shopping center full of security cameras, and I called my mother.