“Lucy.” He looked me straight in the eye for the first time since I walked into the bar, his expression hard. “This just isn’t… I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.” It was in moments like this that time seemed to stop—moments so vividly painful, almost surreal in the pain that they promised. My insides lurched. My breath slipped out of my throat and I thought I was going to choke. Every part of my body went numb, and I had the sensation that I was deep in a lucid dream. I blinked several times
