Ava sat quietly in the back seat of the cab, her eyes on the window, but she wasn’t really seeing anything. The streets passed in a blur. She didn’t know where to look, what to think. Her heart felt heavy, her chest tight. And no matter how many times she wiped her cheeks, the tears just kept falling.

She tried to hold it in, but it was useless.

She wasn’t sobbing loudly. It was quiet, broken crying—the kind that just spilled out slowly because the pain was too deep to scream. Her hands were on her lap, her fingers twisting together like she could hold herself together just by staying...