Chapter 9 — 9:45

I pulled myself up off the wet pavement and got into the driver’s seat of my car, locking the doors against the storm.

I turned down the visor mirror and looked at what they had done.

I did not cry.

Something in me had gone very quiet and very cold, and I understood, sitting there in the rain, that the woman who had loved Marius had died somewhere on that ballroom floor, and that I did not particularly miss her.

Then I looked at the clock on the dashboard.