“Come on, Grumpy.” She grabbed my hand. I stared down at our joined hands in bewilderment. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care that blood from my hand coated her fingers, marking her with my sins. There was something in that image—our bloody hands dripping onto the pavement as I let her pull me into the dark street. A metaphor, or a phrase I couldn’t quite place right now. It was raining. Distantly, I considered that I’d been right about the rain—that was good. It would wash away the blood trail. I looked down at our hands again. The blood trail was an unnecessary, unplanned complication.
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