ALEX

Darkness.

That was the icy cold, unwelcome blanket that enveloped me when Laura left.

I wasn’t sure if that was correct—or even possible—but I couldn’t explain it any better than that. With her gone, it felt like the very ground I walked on had been swept from right under my fucking feet and I’d been plunged into a bottomless, pitch-black pit, one where I’d been falling for the past hour.

Still kneeling in the same spot I’d been when she walked out of the room and out of my life, I’d lost track of time. I couldn’t tell how long it had been, only that it had to have...