The trailer sat at the end of a row of trailers in a park off I-75 outside Detroit. It was beige. It had always been beige. Ruthie couldn't remember a time when it wasn't beige. The heater was broken again. She could see her breath in the kitchen while she made coffee. The coffee was instant. It tasted like it had been sitting on the burner since yesterday. Ruthie Calloway was nineteen years old and she said sorry a lot. Not because she had done anything wrong. Just because it was the habit she had formed over nineteen years of taking up space in other people's lives and apologizing for the inconvenience. "Sorry, Doc. Sorry. Sorry, I didn't see you there. Sorry my hair is like this. Sorry I'm late. Sorry I'm early. Sorry." She said sorry to the floor when she bumped into tables. She said sorry to herself in the mirror, which felt weird the first few times but eventually just felt normal. The Kid appeared on a Wednesday in November. She saw him first at the bus stop outside the trailer park. He was sitting on the bench wearing a thin jacket that was inappropriate for the weather. Twenty below zero. Wind chill thirty-five. He was reading a book with his bare hands, the way you read a book when cold is something that happens to other people. She noticed the book because it was an economics textbook. Specifically, the one she was using for her ECO 201 class at the community college. She sat down next to him on the bench. The metal was cold enough to burn through her jeans. "You study econ?" she asked. He looked up from the book. His eyes were grey. Not sky-grey. Concrete-grey. "You look like someone who studies econ." "Or someone who's forced to study econ because it's the cheapest class at the college." He went back to reading. She noticed he turned the pages with his thumb only—the others were wrapped in something. Tape? Bandages? The heater in the trailer was making a sound like a dying animal. She stood up. "Well. Sorry for sitting on your bench." "You can sit." "Sorry." She went into the trailer. She sat down on the couch. She said sorry to the couch for sitting on it. The Kid appeared again two days later. At Doc's Diner, where Ruthie worked from 3 PM to 11 PM. He came in at 9 PM, ordered black coffee, and sat in the corner booth. He sat there until closing. He drank exactly one cup of coffee. He paid with cash. He left without saying goodbye. Ruthie told Doc about him the next day. "Kid's strange," she said. Doc, who was sixty-four and Greek and had seen everything that could be seen, nodded. "Everybody's strange. Some of us just hide it better." The Kid came to Doc's Diner three more times that week. Each time: black coffee, corner booth, one cup. Each time, Ruthie noticed the way his hands looked—wrapped loosely, like they had been injured and never fully healed. Each time, she noticed he was reading the same economics textbook. She brought him a slice of pie on the fifth night. He was sitting in the corner booth. It was almost closing time. "For you," she said, putting the plate on the table. He looked at the pie. Looked at her. "I didn't order pie." "I know. It's free. Don't tell Doc I gave away free pie." He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. "Thanks." "You're welcome. You read the same book every time. You studying econ?" "Not really." "Then why read it?" "I don't know." She sat down across from him without asking. This was something she did: sat down without asking. People either accommodated her or didn't. Most accommodated her because it was easier than explaining why she shouldn't sit there. "You know," she said, "saying 'I don't know' is a really efficient way to end a conversation." "I'm not ending it." "Then maybe give me something to work with." He looked at her. Really looked at her. She was wearing a faded red sweater and jeans that had been patched at the knee. Her hair was cut short because long hair was hard to manage when you were always cold. She had a scar on her chin from when she fell off a bicycle at age seven. She looked exactly like a nineteen-year-old girl from a trailer park outside Detroit. And yet, she was the most interesting person he had talked to in two years. "What's your name?" he asked. "Ruthie." "Ruthie." "That's what everyone calls me. My real name is Ruth. But Ruthie sounds like someone who says sorry a lot." "You say sorry a lot." "Yep." "Why?" She shrugged. "It's just polite." "That's not why." She thought about this. The diner was empty except for Doc, who was watching the game on TV behind the counter. The heater was making its dying-animal sound through the wall. Outside, the wind was blowing snow across the parking lot. "I don't know why," she said. "Everyone knows why." "Maybe you can tell me." He shook his head. "Not my place." He paid for the pie. He finished his coffee. He stood up and left. She watched him walk out into the snow, wearing that thin jacket, shoulders straight, hands in his pockets. He didn't look cold. Or maybe he did and he just didn't show it. The heater broke again the next week. This time it was really broken. Not the dying-animal sound. Silence. Complete silence. Ruthie called the landlord. He said he'd fix it "when he gets around to it." He had been saying that for six months. She sat on her couch in her red sweater and tried to read her economics textbook. The words kept swimming. She couldn't focus. The cold was getting into her bones. The door opened at 10 PM. She was half-asleep on the couch. She didn't hear the door open—maybe it didn't open all the way, maybe it was already slightly ajar. But suddenly there was someone in the trailer, and they were holding something that looked like a heating unit. "Your old one's dead," the Kid said. She sat up. "Who are you?" "The kid. From the bus stop. From Doc's." She blinked. "You're my heating unit?" "I got one from Doc's. He has a connection." "That doesn't sound safe." "It is safe." He installed the heater in about ten minutes. He knew exactly what he was doing. He plugged it in. Turned it on. Warm air started blowing. Ruthie felt tears come to her eyes. Not crying. Just: her eyes felt full. "Why?" she asked. He was packing up his tools. "What do you mean, why?" "I mean—why are you doing this? You don't even know me." "I know enough." "What's that?" "That you say sorry a lot. That you read economics books. That you give away free pie. That you sit down without asking." He looked at her. "That's enough." He left. The heater hummed. Ruthie sat on her couch and said sorry to the heater for being grateful. She didn't see the Kid for three weeks. Then he was back. Sitting on the bench at the bus stop. Reading the economics book. She sat down next to him. "Where have you been?" she asked. "Around." "Doing what?" "Things." "Things that involve disappearing for three weeks?" "Something like that." She looked at his hands. The bandages were fresh. "Your hands hurt." "They used to." "You gonna tell me what happened to them?" "No." "Okay." She said okay. She meant it. She didn't push. This was new for her—meeting someone who didn't want to be interrogated, and choosing not to interrogate them back. They sat in silence for a while. The wind blew. The highway made its constant noise. Somewhere, a dog barked. "You know," she said eventually, "you don't have to tell me anything. But if you want to, I'm here. I'm bad at giving advice but good at listening. And I don't say sorry when people tell me things. I save the sorrys for when I bump into tables." He looked at her. His grey eyes were tired. Very tired. "I used to think I was doing something important," he said quietly. "Something that mattered on a big scale. Saving people. Preventing things. You know the type." "And now?" "Now I'm not sure." "That's okay." "Most people aren't okay with that." "Most people say sorry when they bump into tables. I'm not most people." He almost smiled. It was the smallest thing. Barely a movement. But it was there. In March, he came to the trailer one last time. He looked worse than she had ever seen him. Dark circles under his eyes. Hands that wouldn't stop shaking. He stood in her doorway and didn't come in. "I'm leaving," he said. "When?" "Now." "Where to?" " Away." She nodded. She didn't ask him to stay. She didn't ask him to tell her his name. She just stood in her doorway and listened to a heater hum and a highway roar and a man she barely knew say goodbye. "Will you come back?" she asked. He shook his head. "Probably not." "Okay." "I'm sorry." She was surprised. He never said sorry. "For what?" "For not being—" He stopped. Looked at his shaking hands. "For not being someone who knows how to stay." She reached out. Put her hand on his arm. His skin was cold. His sleeve was thin. "You don't have to apologize for that," she said. "Some people aren't built for staying. Some of us aren't built for letting go. We're just built for this: the in-between. The sorrys and the almost-smiles and the heaters that work for a little while." He looked at her. His eyes were very grey. The colour of concrete. The colour of a Detroit sky in March. "Take this," he said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to her. She unfolded it. Handwriting—neat, precise, unfamiliar. She read it. Once. Twice. The words were simple. Four lines. She held the paper in her cold hands and felt something shift inside her, small and quiet and permanent. "I'll see you around, Ruthie," he said. "Okay." He walked away. Down the trailer park road. Past the last trailer. Into the March wind. She watched him go until he disappeared behind a line of bare trees. She went back into the trailer. Sat down on the couch. Put the paper in her economics textbook, on page 147, between the chapters on supply and demand. The next morning, she went to Doc's Diner. She was late. Doc didn't say anything. She didn't say sorry. She opened the door, walked to the counter, and started her shift. Etotal: 14.2 Dominant Mode: M0 (Tragedy/Existential) Dominant Angle: 270 degrees (Existential/Absurd) Rank: 4 Dominance Ratio: 0.09 Irreversibility: 0.8 Redemption: 0.3 MVector: [6.0, 3.0, 2.0, 7.0, 3.0, 3.5, 2.0, 0.0, 5.0, 2.0] NVector: [0.40, 0.60] KVector: [0.60, 0.40] TICode: A7E3 TI: 62.1

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