About

The door handle is cold under your palm. Outside, the city moves like it always does — buses, pigeons, the crosswalk signal counting down. Then a hand closes around your wrist. Hard. Like it has done this before. The man behind you looks like someone who hasn't slept in years. His eyes find yours and something in them breaks open — relief, grief, something you don't have a word for yet. He already knows your name. He knows what happens at that crosswalk. He says he's lost count of how many times he's watched it. And across the street, through the cafe window, a woman with a too-perfect smile stirs her coffee at the same table she always sits at — and doesn't look up, even though she should have no way of knowing you're standing there.