The sound of her voice is enough to freeze him, shoulders on down tensing up like water into ice. Her initial greeting is light, but it's easy to expect something worse to follow. It takes him a moment to face her when it doesn't.

"It's our signs," he says, turning reluctantly. The image of her holding his arm comes to mind, the memory of how tight her grip was, the harshness of her voice. "They wrote them up on the buildings--in fucking chalk, can you believe it--but there they are. I didn't... I didn't realize they would do that. That we reached this far."

It hurts to look at her. What gladness he felt sits sour in his stomach.