Halfway into my drive home, loneliness hits. As strange and shocking as my evening was, it was wholly consuming. For brief moments, I’d felt seen. A part of my own life. Now, the truth rises up to swallow me. This is my reality—solitude no longer a choice but a necessity.

Work to pay bills and eat.

Sleep and survive the nightmares.

My recent glimpse of color only magnifies the empty, ashen landscape in which I exist. It hurts like a limb waking up from sleep. Sharp and fiery. The reminder that I used to be free to feel whatever I wanted, express my truth, and follow my heart. Although I’m alive, I’m not free, bound forever in my prison of sorrow and guilt.

The echoes of my laughter with Nate tonight find and clash with younger, freer sounds of my childhood. I think of my sister, Paris, and the hellions we were as teenagers. The late-night, whispered conversations. Sneaking out to parties—not because our parents would care, necessarily, but because of the thrill. That elusive, seducing feel of danger.

Floating in memories that for once aren’t painful, I use my car’s Bluetooth to dial my sister.

It’s close to midnight—3 a.m. her time—but she answers anyway. Just like she always does.

“London? What’s wrong?”

“Relax, sis. Nothing’s on fire.” I hear soft music in the background, but still ask, “Did I wake you?”

“I wish.”

“Damning the Man is hard work, huh?”

She chuckles. “Something like that.”

Paris only sleeps a few hours a night when she’s working on a case. A defense attorney with a firm back East, she specializes in class action and civil liberties lawsuits. If memory serves, right now she’s defending several rural families whose well-water was contaminated by a nearby factory. The suits at the factory, of course, are denying culpability.

The fact that horrible shit happens to people all the time—and is mostly ignored—is why Paris pursued Law. She’s lucky enough to work for a firm that believes in her. Or rather, they believe in her track record of winning insane settlement amounts. But I’m terminally cynical.

A kettle whistles on her end. We don’t speak as she prepares a cup of tea. As I listen and envision my sister, warmth and gratitude spread through me. We’ve had our challenges, but she’s the one sane thing in my world.

“I’m worried about you,” Paris says finally, her voice thin and whispery. I imagine her words flattened and eroded by the space between us. There are 2797 miles between Los Angeles and New York.

I clench my teeth, focusing on taking a deep breath. The kind that expands the bottom of your rib cage like wings. For a few seconds, my body soars in its very own oxygen sky. This particular technique is the only useful tool my former therapist gave me.

I clear my throat. Choke on the emptiness there. What possible words can I offer? Nothing will reassure her, because she’s right to worry. Even I don’t know who I am anymore, what I’m doing, how I’m living and breathing.

“I’m okay,” I finally say.

“Did you find a therapist yet?”

“Still looking,” I lie, then change the subject. “How’s Suzie?”

“She’s great. Yesterday she said fuck in her kindergarten class and came home with a nice note from the teacher. We’re so proud.”

I laugh so hard I almost pee my pants, and Paris makes it her mission to keep me laughing until I reach the tiny apartment I’m renting in Culver City.

When I pull into my parking spot and cut the engine, she yawns loudly. I follow suit, and she chuckles. When we were kids, she used to fake yawn all the time just to laugh at my inability to control the reflex.

“Home safe?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I grab my purse from the passenger seat, then pause, closing my eyes and letting my head hit the headrest. “You know why I had to leave, right?”

She’s quiet for a long moment. “I do. I just wish… things had been different.”

I snort with wry humor. “Me too.”

“Are you sure you won’t talk to Josh? He could—”

I cut her off. “He can’t do anything. You know it, I know it. We went down that road, remember?” I’m struggling to keep the bitterness from my voice. “No one believed me. The DA wouldn’t take my case. The press crucified me. I know Josh means well, but let’s be real—there’s no way he’ll get clearance to reopen the case.”

“London…” whispers Paris. “Please, I’m just scared for you. Mom and Dad want so bad for you to come home.”

Home.

I don’t have one.

Not anymore.

Losing everything isn’t something anyone wants. Even those who deserve it—deserve to have their life go up in flames—don’t want it. But it happens. And like a hurricane or earthquake, there can be little warning. One day, your world is full of color and light and sound, and the next it’s monochrome, silent, and cold.

Once upon a time, I had a life. A husband, a house, a six-year-old Lab named Felix we adopted as a puppy. Paul and I loved that dog. Not yet ready for kids, Felix was our surrogate child. Our family.

I don’t know why I think about the dog most. Like the way he drank water from his bowl—the slurping sound, how his tongue seemed to splash more water onto the kitchen tile than into his mouth. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, in the moments before I remember, I imagine the sound of Felix’s doggy snores. For brief, happy seconds, the pillow jammed against my leg is a canine body.

But Felix is gone now. So is Paul, but I don’t think about him as often these days. Not because the loss of my dog was worse than the loss of my husband. Not even close. Maybe it’s simply easier to give my pain to Felix. He had no part in what happened. My feelings about Paul are more complex.

He did have a part—though he was only doing his job. I occasionally wonder if things would have gone differently had I known his job would kill him. Would I have been so supportive when he brought up wanting to enroll in the Police Academy all those years ago, when we were young and idealistic and in love? Sometimes I think I would be. Other times I don’t.

Hindsight isn’t always 20/20. It can also be like looking through wax, hazy and distorted. People who say it is haven’t lost what I lost. Didn’t watch their spouse vanish in a fireball right before their eyes. Didn’t see their own career crumble shortly thereafter.

Guilty people escape justice.

The world isn’t fair.

And sometimes, when you think you’re doing the right thing, there’s a grinning devil on your shoulder waiting for the perfect moment to say, “Joke’s on you!”