“It isn’t a ticket back into my life.” He looked up at the warm sign over the door.

“You actually opened it.” “I did.” “I lost the job,” he said quietly, his breath fogging the glass.

“The apartment.

My reputation.

Even my mother blames me.

You won every round, Gabby.” “I was never competing with you,” I told him, and found that I meant it, that I felt nothing at all standing there — not triumph, not anger, just the mild attention you’d give a stranger in the rain.