All afternoon she’d kept a browser tab open on a pair of low silver heels with a little ankle strap, marked down to thirty-four dollars on clearance at a department store in Sioux Falls.

Every four or five minutes the screen lit up with a message from her track team group chat, and her hand jumped toward it before she made herself put her spoon back down.

Rory was supposed to text by five with the address of the shoe store.

He’d promised her Sunday afternoon that they’d go together right after his shift ended at four, buy the silver heels she’d saved on her phone and get dinner on the way home.

By six fifteen, steam had stopped rising from the chili pot on the back burner.