Marcus didn’t move closer. The three feet between them held. Elena could feel the effort it was costing him the same way she could feel the effort it was costing her. The house around them was quiet and ordinary and completely wrong.

“I’m going to make dinner,” he said eventually. “You should eat something. Even if it doesn’t taste like anything.”

She nodded again. He went to the kitchen. Elena stayed in the living room with her arms crossed over the marks and the dull continuous ache and the thick, complicated misery of trying to put down something that was still living in every room of the house.

Dinner was...