“Hey, Cameron.” She was wearing his jacket over pajamas. “Did you walk all the way here?” She was worried. Her gray eyes searched his face.

“Hi, Emily.” He clenched his numb fingers until he knew they were white shadows, like the shadows of his breath. Her eyes were half open and only half visible in the chiaroscuro painted by the bright porch light to the side. Her hair was a mess. His must have been too.

“What's wrong?” she asked. Behind her, the light of blue LEDs immersed with a cold glow the stopped clock she'd never fixed. The clock he'd bought her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just—I can't do this.” He felt slow and awkward, a child trapped in a dream. The sharp nighttime air was choking him, and he wasn't sure he could breathe the words. “I want to break up,” he said.

And that was it. There was no going back from that. He searched for her eyes in the cracks of the porch but found only her feet. A drop landed beside them and soaked into the concrete. Emily didn't deserve this.

“I'm sorry,” he said again.

“Cameron!” said Emily. “No! You can't—I mean!”

He made himself look up into her soft face. Her long, black hair had fallen, but it failed to fully hide her cheeks or her eyes. Both glistened in the unwelcome light of the porch.

“I know,” he said. “I'm sorry. This is coming out of nowhere for you.”

“But you—I mean—England was just last weekend! We were both so happy on the trip, weren't we?” She brushed her hair from her eyes, revealing them and laying them bare, and gray, before him. All that remained to veil his face were the immodest wisps of their own breaths, like wraiths between them. “Cameron I'm—I'm not okay with this. We're really done? It's over just like that?” she asked.

He could feel the concern behind her words, and the need for connection. But his own words had fled him entirely. He couldn't find them. They had gone.

“Why?” she asked. “I mean, if you can tell me. Can you tell me the reason?”

“I just—” But he didn't know what to say.