I sat in the truck in the car park of a coffee shop on Seventh Street for sixty-four minutes on the twelfth of November 2025 and I did not look at my telephone once, which is the only time in my adult life that has happened.

Daniela came out at four minutes past three and got into the passenger seat and put her seatbelt on and said, “Can we go to the Lux?”

So we drove eleven minutes to a different coffee shop and she had a thing with cinnamon in it and did not say anything for about twenty minutes, and I did not ask her anything, which took everything I had.

And then she told me.