KAREN’S POV – Present Tense

The rain has stopped, but the air is thick, damp with the scent of asphalt and smoke from distant traffic. My apartment feels smaller somehow, the walls closing in, heavy with the echo of that image. I replay it over and over — Dre’s back, the curve of Yasmin’s shoulder, the impossibility of trusting anything again.

My hands are trembling. I clutch the journal like a lifeline, though it offers no answers tonight. Only questions that twist in my chest like ...