Apparently, I’d miscalculated somehow. I’d never manage to fit three more parking spaces into this layout. “Bea?” I called, and she poked her head up from behind her desk. “Bea, I’m not getting anywhere with this. Can you help me?”

She stood up and walked over to look at the large blueprint spread out on the desk in front of me.

“I need to get another parking spot in here somehow,” I said, tapping the area giving me trouble.

“Hm.” Bea measured the length with a drafting triangle. “There’s enough space, but the angle wouldn’t work.”

My phone vibrated inside my purse. Very unusual for this time of day—it was only mid-morning. “Sorry, I need to take this.” I looked at the display. Danny! My heart began to race. He hardly ever called me while I was at work, and certainly not in the morning. “Danny?”

The silence on the other end was far too long. “The police are here,” he said without a word of greeting. “They may have found Tina.”

“Is she okay?” I asked anxiously.

“This cop and I are driving down to the morgue to see if it’s her.”

Good God! “Where is it?” I practically bellowed into the telephone.

He gave me the address.

“Wait there!” I screeched. “I’ll leave right now. Don’t move!” Oh, God, please let it not be her!

“Jessica? Are you okay?” Bea gave me a concerned look. “You’re white as a sheet!”

“They may have found Christina’s body.”

Dear God in Heaven, if you’re up there somewhere, please let it not be her! Danny will never get through this!

“The girl who lives with your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly jolted into action, I leaped up and grabbed my purse. “Bea, I gotta go. I’ll be in touch later. Tell the boss.”

She nodded. “I’ll cross my fingers for you.”

Me too. I’ll cross my fingers for me. For Christina. For Danny! Please, God, let this be some other girl. Danny’s gone through enough, please, please, not this too! Please let this be some other girl!

The whole way over, I sent one frantic prayer after another up to heaven, offering God all kinds of things if this girl could please just not be our Christina.

At some point, it occurred to me that, somewhere in the world, a mother might be sitting there begging God just as fervently for this girl not to be her daughter. I stopped praying.

I don’t remember how I got to the morgue. I didn’t have any idea where it was, and I didn’t have a GPS or a map. I think I asked around. Regardless, when I got there, there wasn’t a single available parking space anywhere, so I left my car in the fire lane. Danny’s car was parked a little farther on.

Darting out of my car, I ran toward his. Then I saw him. He was running around and around his car. Again, and again, and again.

No. No. No!

I broke into a run and called his name. Oh, God, it was her.

Christina’s dead! Why, God, why? Danny won’t survive this! Why, God, why?

My heart was hammering in my throat and my stomach was one big clump of ice. “Danny?”

He didn’t react.

“Oh, God, Danny! I’m so sorry!”

Without looking at me, he ran straight around to the driver’s side door.

“You can’t drive like this!” I cried.

His face was snow-white, and he’d bitten his whole lip bloody. Still staring blankly out into nothing, he ducked away and ran past me again. Suddenly, I was terrified he would just keep on running and never stop. I hastened after him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him back to his car.

“Get in. I’ll drive.” My voice cracked, and I realized I was in no condition to drive, either. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I led him by the hand to his car, pried his keys from his clenched fist, and opened the door for him.

Though I was blinded by tears and sobbing the entire way, I somehow managed to follow the GPS’s instructions back to Danny’s. My joints were like jelly, my insides were in knots, and I could barely swallow. Danny didn’t say a word. His eyes were still focused out into the distance, and he kept right on chewing his bleeding lip.

Shock! my inner voice shrieked. He’s in shock! Get him to a doctor!

But my hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t get the key out of the ignition. Danny had already gotten out and gone into the apartment.

I found him sitting cross-legged on the couch. His workout clothes were clinging to his body, and his socks were dirty.

“Danny!” I shouted. “Say something!”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even move.

“This is hard for me too!” I stood there screaming at him, letting my tears flow freely. “It hurts me too! She was my Tina, too! My Tina! Can you understand that?”

At some point, I started running around in a circle, the way he’d been doing before. I needed to do something. But what?

Call someone. You guys need help.

Where was my phone? I ran around the apartment like a madwoman looking for it, before finally finding it in my purse. I dialed Ricky’s number.

“Ricky!” I shouted into the phone.

“Jessica! What’s wrong?”

“Christina’s dead. Danny’s in shock. You have to come over here.”

“Shit. What the hell happened?”

“She’s dead!” I sniffled and wiped at my running nose.

“I’m in Berlin,” he said nervously. “Can you put Danny on the phone?”

“No!” I snapped. Was the whole world against me or something? “He isn’t speaking, because Tina’s dead.” I hung up and scrolled through my contacts to find Simon’s number. His phone was off. Then I called Bea—I really needed to talk to somebody. “Bea, it was her. Christina’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Jessica,” she said calmly. Probably because she was still at work. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you two.”

“I need the rest of the week off. Have them take it out of my vacation time.”

“I’ll let them know,” she said. “Was it an accident?”

“I’ve gotta go. I’ll be in touch.”

My car. I needed to pick it up, or else it would be towed. Why hadn’t we driven home in my car and left his in the parking lot?

Oh, that’s right, because Christina is dead.

Everything was in chaos.

I knew Danny would never manage to get there and back, so I called my brother and asked if he could bring me to my car. Of course, he wanted to know why I’d left it somewhere in the first place. “I’ll explain later,” I snapped at him. Why was everyone so slow on the uptake? Thorsten would be off work early today, and he promised to come in two hours.

Two hours? What was I going to do with myself for that long?

What was I going to do with myself ever again?

Christina was dead. She would always be dead.

Then it hit me. Jörg. Call Jörg. Have him come out and look after Danny. He was Danny’s case worker, he would know what to do.

I didn’t have his number, so I ran into Danny’s office and rummaged through everything in the room. No dice.

Back in the living room, Danny didn’t look like he’d moved an inch.

“Where’s your phone?” I barked at him.

He shrugged indifferently.

“You’re a lot of help,” I muttered.

After a while of frantic searching, I found his phone on the kitchen table. I went through his contacts and painstakingly added Jörg’s number to my phone. I don’t know why I didn’t just use Danny’s. Most likely because Christina was dead.

Jörg picked up on the third ring. “Pfisterer.”

“Jörg? This is Jessica!”

“Jessica who?”

Jesus Christ, was everyone trying to piss me off? “Danny’s Jessica. Christina is dead!”

Silence.

“Where are you two?”

“At Danny’s. He’s… I need your help!” I practically begged.

“I’m coming,” he said. “I’m out and about right now. It might be an hour, maybe more. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

What the hell was everyone doing for so long? This was unbelievable. I ran back to the living room. “Danny!” I yelled. “Stop this shit right now!”

Why are you screaming at him, too?

“Talk to me,” I growled, taking a pillow and throwing it at his head. He didn’t try to catch it or block it. I launched a second pillow at him.

It wasn’t until long after that I realized I was in complete shock myself. At the time, all I could feel was anger. Furious and desperate, I knelt down on the floor in front of Danny and shook him by the shoulders. He didn’t defend himself. I grabbed his face and forced him to look at me. His lip was completely shredded, and the eyes he’d once hypnotized me with now stared straight through me. There was no spark of life left in them, only fathomless emptiness.

“Danny,” I pleaded, tears streaming down my cheeks. Without a word, he pulled me into his arms, laid his chin on my head, and stroked my back as I cried and cried and cried. Danny showed no emotion at all—he was a robot.

My phone beeped, pulling me away from Danny. It was Thorsten. He was going to be here soon.

Had it already been two goddamn hours? Where the hell was Jörg?

Slowly, I stood up. My stiff knees cracked when I stretched them. “I’m just going to go get my car real quick,” I told Danny quietly.

No response.

“Jörg’s coming over. He should be here any minute. You won’t be alone for more than ten minutes. Will you be okay for that long?”

Danny nodded.

I gave him a kiss on his bloody lip. Even that, he went along with. And in that exact moment, it became clear to me that Danny would never be the same again. Something in him had broken and could never be fixed. The revelation made me burst into tears all over again. I stroked his blond hair. “I’ll be back in two hours. Stay right here, whatever you do!”

It felt like I was leaving a ticking time bomb.

As I walked out, I started to dial Jörg’s number, but I saw his car pulling around the corner. A sigh of relief rushed out of me.

My brother was already outside waiting. “What’s wrong, sis? You look upset.” He even sounded a little worried, at least by his standards.

“Can you please just shut up and take me to my car?”

He drove in offended silence all the way there. “Why did you leave your car at a morgue?” he asked, pulling up beside it.

“So you could ask stupid questions about it,” I growled before yanking the door open and walking off without thanking him for the lift.

 

On the way back to Danny’s, I called my mother to let her know I wouldn’t be home for the rest of the week.

“Where are you?” she asked anxiously.

“Danny’s. Something happened. I took the week off from work. I won’t be home until Sunday.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I won’t be picking the dog up. See you Sunday.”

Before I could hang up, she asked, “It sounds like you’ve been crying. Did you two get in a fight?”

“No!” I shouted. Every nerve in my body was vibrating. “How could we fight when he’s not speaking to me at all?”

My mother took that the wrong way, of course—how could she have known any better? “Maybe you ought to come home if he’s being like that.”

“The girl he loves more than anything in the world died.”

My explanation only made things worse, of course.

“What?” she gasped. “But that’s you, isn’t it? You’re his girlfriend.”

“The other girl he—” I stopped mid-sentence, realizing I was digging myself into a deeper hole. “Just leave me alone.” I hung up and added another name to my mental list of people I owed an apology.

Just like that, I felt completely drained. I wanted to go back to Danny, to get in bed with him, pull the covers over my head, and sleep for all eternity. And dream. Of a better world. One without illness, without rape, without AIDS, without death.

One with a healthy Danny and a living Christina. And unicorns grazing under rainbows beside laughing children with pink cotton candy.

 

Jörg’s car was still in front of the building when I returned, and I thanked God for that as I stormed into the apartment. Jörg met me in the hallway with a finger to his lips. With quiet steps, he led me to the kitchen, where I collapsed in a chair, and he gave me some hot tea and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. As if I would be able to eat something.

“Danny’s in shock,” he said, peering closely at me. “And so are you.”

“Did he talk to you?” I took a sip of the tea. Peppermint. Somehow, it reignited the few remaining sparks of life within me.

“Yeah, he did.”

I blinked in amazement. “How did you manage that?”

“Years of experience. I’m a social worker. It’s part of my job.”

Listlessly, I nibbled on a cookie. Calling Jörg had been a better idea than I knew. “Where’s Danny now?”

“In bed. I brought him some medication to help him sleep.”

“You gave him sleeping pills?” No fair! I want some too!

“It’s the best thing for him right now. He was completely out of it. I don’t know if he’ll be able to cope with this. It’s too much for him. He’s blocking it out right now, but he’s going to have to work through it, or he’ll never make peace with it. He needs to grieve.”

“How do we make sure that happens?” Considering how he was today, I couldn’t imagine him ever allowing himself to grieve.

“It’ll come,” Jörg said. “He’ll go through a whole spectrum of emotions, which is a good thing. It’s important for him not to get stuck at anger. The only thing that will help him is grieving. He needs to find that emotion, and he needs to stay in it for as long as he needs.”

I nodded again.

“I’ll pick him up tomorrow afternoon,” Jörg went on. “We have a psychologist at the children’s home—I’ll take Danny there.”

“He’s agreed to go with you?” I was astonished. I never would have thought that was possible—but then again, I’d also learned by then that I would never know Danny well enough for him to stop surprising me.

“You should come, too,” Jörg said with such conviction that I didn’t bother contradicting him.

“What happened to her?” I asked. “Do you know?”

Jörg told me what Danny had told him. That it was possible Christina had been raped. That nobody knew why the drugs she’d taken afterward were bad. I think that was the worst part: that she hadn’t just died peacefully. Those mental images would haunt Danny for the rest of his life. And me, too. As if we didn’t already have enough horrible images in our heads.

Jörg fixed some noodle soup, and somehow I managed to get it down, one spoonful at a time. As unbelievable as it seemed, life really did go on. At least for the people left behind.

It was late in the evening when Jörg finally stood up to leave. “I’ll leave my phone on all night,” he promised. “If you need anything, call me. No matter what time.”

“Thanks.”

Jörg gave me a goodbye hug. What would I have done without him? I asked myself that question a lot later on, when it became clear that Danny and I were completely alone in the world. His father was in jail, his mother was useless, and his aunt was across the ocean. And my parents lived in a different world. They never would have understood any of this. They’d have dragged me back home to protect me from Danny.

We were alone, and we always would be.

 

I didn’t bother changing for bed. I just laid down beside Danny in my jeans and sweater. Danny, who was curled up under the covers, asleep, had done the same. He’d taken off his dirty socks and thrown them in the corner, but he was still wearing his workout clothes. Silently, I stretched out beside him. He smelled like sweat. In all the time I’d been with him, he’d never once smelled like cold sweat, and he’d certainly never gone to bed without showering.

I gently pulled him closer. He woke up. Of course he woke up. It wouldn’t have mattered if Jörg had given him ten pounds of sleeping pills—when someone got into bed with him, he woke up. He was traumatized in every corner of his soul, and Christina’s death wasn’t going to improve that.

He reached for my hand, laid it against his chest, and held it there for a while. Then he stood up slowly, walked to the window, and fixed his gaze on some imaginary point far off in the darkness.

“Talk to me, Danny.” How often had I said those words to him today already, and how often would I have to repeat them in the future?

He turned to look at me, as if he’d just now noticed I was there. “Don’t you need to get home?” he asked, confused.

Well, at least he’d said something.

“I took some time off work. I’m going to spend the rest of the week here with you.”

He acknowledged that triviality with a nod and resumed staring out the window. “She was raped,” he suddenly blurted out.

“They don’t know that for sure,” I replied weakly.

“All her life, that was the exact thing she was most afraid of. Why the hell did it have to happen to her, of all people? Again! What the fuck is wrong with this fucking world?”

“You know better than anyone that life isn’t fair.”

“I hate men! All of them! Only men are capable of shit like that!” His voice trembled with anger and contempt. “They ought to be taken outside and shot, all of them!”

“Not all men are like that. You’re a man, too.”

“If that’s what it takes,” he said bitterly, “I’ll join them in front of the firing squad. I’ll happily lead the way, waving a flag.”

“You’re angry,” I remarked. “That’s good. Don’t suppress it. You have to let the anger out.”

As if on cue, something exploded inside of him. He slammed his foot into the wardrobe door, and the wood splintered on impact. Then he pulled it back and demolished the other side with his other foot. Having seen him do this before, I knew he wouldn’t stop until he’d turn the doors to kindling.

Well, if it helps…

Danny moved around to the side of the wardrobe and hit it again with a series of kickboxing-style side kicks. He didn’t bother to set his leg down between kicks for extra momentum, but the blows were enough to send the wood flying in every direction anyway.

His bare feet were beginning to bleed, but I knew he was used to pain and was able to block it out. If he noticed it at all, it didn’t seem to bother him. Maybe it even helped distract him from the emotional pain a little.

Once the wardrobe was in shambles, he left the room. I followed him into the living room, where he smashed the glass door on the entertainment center with his already-injured foot. Shards of glass clattered all over the floor.

“Danny, that’s enough.” Was he planning on destroying all the furniture in the apartment?

“You said anger was good!” He kept right on kicking the splintered door. I had to look away—the sight made my whole body cramp up. Blood was running down his foot. Never before and never since have I met anyone who bled as often as Danny, the very person whose blood was poison.

“It is, but that’s enough now!”

“I’m just getting warmed up!”

Good Lord! How could one person have so much fury inside him?

As Danny strode barefoot through the shards, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the glass slicing into his skin. He headed for the dining room table and shifted his weight to prepare for another kick. I dashed over and blocked his way. “That’s enough!” I shrieked. “It’s enough! She’s dead. What you’re doing here isn’t going to bring her back!”

Danny wound up and slammed his fist into the wall just over my head. There was an audible crack, the sound of snapping bones, but he still fired off a second blow with the same hand—and then screamed in pain.

“Stop it! Now!” I cried, seizing his shoulders and pushing him against the opposite wall. “You’re injuring yourself!” I pressed his back up against the wall with all my strength. Of course, he could easily have defended himself, or simply grabbed me and thrown me across the room, but I never worried about that for even a second. I knew he’d never lay a hand on me, no matter how out of his mind he was.

I pressed my forearm against his throat as hard as I could. I wasn’t actually trying to choke him—I just wanted to get him to panic. Danny panicking meant Danny withdrawing into himself and freezing up, rather than Danny exploding in uncontrollable rage. I wanted to take advantage of that, to use his panic to help me get him under control. Even so, as I deliberately forced him into the corner, I felt guilty about it.

Danny slid down the wall so that he could duck out from underneath my arm and escape, but I pushed a knee down onto his stomach and pressed him to the wall with both arms, one forearm still against his throat. He began breathing faster as the panic welled up within him. For a moment, he shut his eyes and gasped for air.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked quietly, but I remained silent, focusing on keeping him in the corner.

His rage evaporated almost immediately. The tension dissipated from his body, and he collapsed into a ball, concentrating on taking deep breaths. I sighed in relief and let go.

He sat there, motionless, until I stepped away. Despite his injured hand, he managed to crawl on all fours to the couch, where he climbed to his feet and headed for the door.

Hurriedly, I squeezed past him and moved into the doorway. “Where are you going?”

“Please let me go!” He sounded desperate.

“Where?” I looked him over. His left foot was streaked with blood, his wrist was probably broken, and he was completely out of his mind.

“To where Tina got her heroin.”

“What for?” To look for the guy who’d given her the bad batch? That could have been anyone—there was no way he’d figure it out. Didn’t he know that?

Call Jörg!

I knew it was the best option. But I couldn’t get to my phone without moving from the door.

“Because I want some, too,” he said lamely. “It helps you forget.”

Panic enveloped me. “No!” I crossed my arms. “Cut that crap out!”

“I’m not asking your permission!” he growled.

“You’re not getting past me!” I planted my feet in the very center of the doorway.

He laughed softly. “You can’t be serious. You want me to show you how I’ll get past you?”

“You can’t drive like this!” I waved a hand in his direction, not really sure if I was referring to his hand or his foot.

He scoffed. “I can, and I will!”

I stretched my arms out, propping my hands on either side of the door frame to block his path. “No way are you going out there to buy drugs.” I tried not to sound nervous. “If you want to do that, you’re going to have to punch me out of the way.”

He scoffed again, turning away and stalking through what was left of the living room. Then he dropped onto the couch, pulled his knees up to his chest, and buried his face in his arms.

Once I was sure he was going to stay in that position, I went to the bathroom and fetched two wet washcloths. When he realized what I was planning on doing with them, he took one out of my hand and washed the blood off his foot. I wrapped the other one around his wrist, which had already turned a worrying shade of blue.

“It hurts so much!” Danny suddenly cried.

I knew he didn’t mean his hand. He was talking about the pain in his heart, which I couldn’t mend, no matter how it threatened to tear him apart. Filled with despair, he clutched his knees and rocked back and forth like a small child, crying over and over again, “It hurts so much! I can’t breathe! It hurts. I can’t breathe without her! I can’t live without her!”

Now he’d gotten to the right emotion. He was past the anger, and now the grief was coming out. Long-term, that was the only thing that would help him, like Jörg had said. Anger couldn’t heal wounds—only grief could. I needed to let him stay with that emotion, as painful as it was.

“Yeah, it hurts, Danny. But it will get better. Someday, the pain won’t be so bad.”

“When?” he asked. “When? I can’t breathe like this.”

“It’ll get better, but it may take a while.”

Danny looked at me. Tears were welling up in his eyes, which were darker than usual, and red from crying. “It’s like part of me is missing,” he whispered. “Like someone ripped a part of my heart out of my chest.”

Tears began to stream down my face, as well. I didn’t know whether I was crying because of his pain or because of my own. Probably both.

I pulled him into my arms, and he sobbed against my shoulder. We spent the rest of the night like that: sitting on the sofa, clinging to each other and crying for the loss of a person who had been an inseparable part of us both.