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“I’m so sorry,” Mira said. So good, so kind. “I know how much you care about her. I hope you’ll find a way.”

Somehow, while talking, they’d leaned further into each other. Now they were pressed together from their shoulders down to their calves. Isabel didn’t want to move, didn’t want to lose Mira’s warmth, didn’t want to stop touching Mira. If only she could have all she wanted. Holding Mira and being held, letting herself be understood.

She was afraid to look at Mira—it might shatter the fragile moment. Instead, she stared at the city below, unseeing, as Mira warmed the left side of her body like a furnace.

She felt lighter. Telling Mira about the shame that’d been festering in her for months had helped ease it a little. She’d told Mira, and Mira hadn’t run away.

Mira shifted her limbs. Isabel was taken by surprise. How long had they been sitting here? The last of the sunset had vanished, and it was fully nighttime.

She turned toward Mira at last. Mira was looking at the rooftops, and Isabel studied the features she knew so well: Mira’s deep brown eyes, her long lashes made even more dramatic by mascara, the elegant line of her nose, the soft, full curve of her mouth. Isabel was used to stealing glances. But then Mira turned, too, and their eyes met.

The clouds of their breaths mingled in the cold air. Isabel’s heart quickened. She had gotten used to Mira leaning against her, but now she was acutely aware of it again, and electricity tingled everywhere they touched. Mira’s lips parted, and Isabel caught herself staring. She looked back up at Mira’s eyes after a moment too long.

“So, I was thinking,” Mira said, startling Isabel. For a second, she’d wondered whether something else might happen. Like Mira kissing her. She was losing her mind.

Thank god Isabel would be out of here soon. The thought gave her no joy at all. She caught up to Mira’s words. “Yeah?”

“Would you consider staying in this apartment for another year?”

16

Isabel said nothing.With every passing second, Mira’s stomach sank further. She had ached for Isabel—for her seriousness and devotion toward the people she loved, for her guilt and pain at the very real mistake she’d made, for the vulnerability she had let Mira glimpse.

And when they’d looked at each other just now, there had been a spark Mira didn’t know how to describe.

A shared understanding, maybe. A sense that they could be more than roommates to each other. A hope for a quiet, stable friendship and the assurance that they could look after each other even as they lived their own lives. And a wild craving—one that unsettled her—to havemoreof Isabel, to peel off more layers and see what was underneath. Mira couldn’t explain or justify any of it.

At the end of the day, they were roommates, and Isabel had her own reasons for moving on.

“Never mind,” Mira said. “I know why you wanted to leave this apartment. You’re free to say no. I’m sorry. It was just an idea.”

Isabel moved away. Without Isabel’s warm, solid body against hers, the cold set in. One last unpleasant reality check. Mira took the hint and moved away too.

“I don’t know,” Isabel said.

“Never mind. Forget I asked.”

Isabel hunched into herself. “I’m not saying no. I really don’t know.”

Mira remained silent. Even if Isabel was considering it, she wouldn’t want to decide now, after she’d had such a hard day. Some part of Mira longed to put an arm around Isabel, but it clearly wouldn’t be welcome. Isabel was only a few inches away, but she was far out of Mira’s reach.

“Thanks for the talk,” Isabel said, not looking at her. “Let’s go back down.”

So Isabel wanted to be alone. Mira didn’t begrudge her that, even if it was now clear how much Isabel tormented herself in private. “Of course. Any time, okay?” She gave Isabel her scarf back, and Isabel wrapped it around her neck again. “Thank you for the scarf. Um, how do we—I should say, how doIget back down?”

“I’ll go ahead of you. You can watch me get back on the ladder, and then do what I do.” Isabel opened the hatch, and light spilled out from below. “If you fall, you’ll have something to fall onto.”

“But I don’t want to crush you.”

“Then you’d better not fall.”

Mira smiled. She stood up, her legs stiff. Isabel swung one leg over the edge, followed by the other, and disappeared down the hatch. Once again, Mira was startled by the nimble, powerful way she moved. She’d been standing on the roof just a moment ago.

“Your turn,” she yelled from below.

This was much harder than Isabel had made it look. Mira crouched down, gripped the metal edge of the hatch with frozen fingers, and forced herself to get her leg over the edge. She waved her leg around for a few nerve-wracking seconds, with nothing underneath her, until her foot found the rung.

She wasn’t as stable as she would have liked. Her ankle boots with a bit of a heel had been a bad choice. But when she’d seen the hatch open, she’d been so worried that she hadn’t stopped to think.