She stood on Billy’s veranda. Loneliness wrapped in a cardigan, staring off into the distance. She looked like she should have a cigarette. It would heighten her brooding. She wouldn’t take a drag. She didn't smoke. The ashes would fall unacknowledged. He could see her breath.
She looked past the neatly arranged saplings of a fresh business park beside Billy’s apartment building. He’d seen her on his own porch once, looking down into the courtyard. The scene’s been played out on rooftops, fire escapes, alleyways. She never turns around. Silently he begs her to. She’s always contemplating the distance.
Each time he sees her that sense of impending regret punctures his chest. Scar tissue penetrates just as easily. The old feeling. It's new every time. Years ago he suspected this would happen. She’s thinking hard and he’s wishing she would go away.
“I don’t disappear," she says. "Not built to."
