Her phone buzzed — a work message, someone asking for a revision — and the mundane drum of it steadied her. She tucked her hands into her coat pockets and walked, the city folding around her like a place with a thousand other stories. Tonight one of them had cracked, but the rest kept going. She could, too.

When she finally stopped and leaned against a lamppost to check herself in the dark glass of a store window, the reflection staring back at her was small and fierce. Her face looked tired but alert. The green she’d said in the quiet room with Brandon felt different now: a word that...