Chapter 220: The Same City
SEDONA
He was close.
That was the first thought. Not a full sentence, not a formed thing, just the fact of it, landing before I was fully awake. The ceiling of the Lincoln Park house instead of the Seattle ceiling. December light through unfamiliar curtains. And underneath all of it, the knowledge: he is close.
I had known Nick was in Chicago his entire life. I had known it through phone screens and Mrs. Peterson's careful logistics and the specific geography of missing someone, the way distance becomes a unit of measurement you carry in your chest without meaning to. Flight duration. Time zones. The number of hours between the moment I wanted to reach him and the moment I could.
This was different.
This was miles. Actual miles, countable, driveable. The sa
