So was the door he locked.

I stopped trying to make one erase the other.

That December, Simone came to stay for two nights.

We made popcorn, studied for finals, and spent an entire afternoon painting our nails with colors that looked terrible together.

The first time we laughed so hard that Colleen knocked on the door to ask what was happening, I realized I hadn’t thought about the case in more than an hour.

I counted that as a victory.