Ann reached to her bedroom door to open it, but hesitated. She had woken up early, and was wondering whether April would be awake by now. She paused at the door, and touched her lips absentmindedly as she lingered. Maybe if she just said nothing, last night would never come up again. But she worried that things would be different; they couldn't look at each other without knowing, the unspoken words suffocating them.

The knob rattled under her trembling hand and she walked softly into the living room. April lay asleep on the couch, turned away. Ann wondered if she should try to slip out before she got up, but worried that it would only make things feel more awkward and distant. April stirred gently, turning around, and looking up at Ann.

"I guess I'll get out of here," April said. She must have been tired – here eyes looked the same as they were last night.

"April," Ann said tentatively, "you can stay here as long as you want."

"Whatever," April muttered, and began looking for her things.

Ann tried to think of a way to get her to stay, but nothing was coming. "April, please."

April shoved her iPod into her bag, looking up. "Please what?"

Ann tried to find the words. "I…"

April crossed her arms.

Ann exhaled. "I got home last night, and you were… Something happened to you last night, and I don't know what it is. And I'm a mess. And God, April, you're married."

"Probably not for long…"

Ann sighed. "April—"

April swung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out the door, the sound of it closing echoing again and again through the silence.

Ann went to refill her mug with more coffee. The house felt quiet and big. Last night, when she approached April on the couch, her hair gently curled, it had been quiet, too. Ann felt the shadow of sensation, of April's lips approaching hers.

Of course, she thought, what that felt like didn't matter. The fact that April kissed her was a sign that everything that had happened to her – separating from Andy, getting fired, this entire place – was wearing on her. How could April not be a mess?

Ann had been desperate before. She knew what it was like to be starved for intimacy, to forget everything else and just reach out to whoever was there. There had been a time – God, she was ashamed to admit it – when she would sleep with a guy without knowing his name. And without being able to remember the name of the one she slept with the previous night. Always a different guy, something to change from what was. Something different from what she was surrounded with day by day. There were days when nothing could have made her come back to this empty house; she was willing to do anything she could to be with someone, to not be alone. God, April must be in dire straits to reach out to her, despite how fucked up she was.

God she was a mess. You couldn't trust yourself to feel what you should feel, to do what you should do, when someone kissed you. Not when you were this damaged. Everything felt muddled and strained – at least, it usually did, when she wasn't at home.

But now the empty house wasn't a comfort, and all she could think about was how stupid the framed picture of flowers on the wall looked, and how the area behind the sink could never really get clean. Suddenly she wanted to move – anywhere, it didn't matter. Indianapolis, Wilmington, back to Michigan – the prospect of nights here, alone, seemed unbearable. The color was all gone, like it had never been there at all. Ann walked over to the kitchen, feeling each deliberate step, and poured the coffee into the sink, brown rivulets running back and forth down the metal, into the drain. She sat down on the couch. It was still warm from April's body, and she absentmindedly ran a hand along the length of it, feeling the residual heat, though now it was nearly spent.

Suddenly she imagined what was coming: seeing April around town, passing awkwardly by, some snide remark of April's always at the ready. But now she would know what would hurt, a barb that would lodge in her and that she couldn't get out; something she would carry with her through the day and into the night, as she tried to fall asleep in a cold bed, all alone. She wanted anything but that; God, she couldn't stand the thought of it, and all the other nights that promised nothing but this empty house.

She couldn't stand this feeling – it passed out of the realm of wanting April back, and now it was a need, a pull from deep inside her, and she was unable to think of anything else. She needed April here, beside her, right now.

She stood up.

Suddenly she understood last night a little more. Not everything. Not the kiss, which still felt…

Ann took a deep breath.

Obviously it was all confused, all mixed up. But she would forget it, and if she acted right now, she could prevent that kiss from ruining their friendship. She crossed the room and looked for her keys. She could convince her to come back – they could just forget it, and chalk it up to whatever had happened to April that night. What had happened, anyway? Had she run into Andy? Something else? Would Ann be able to help?

She could get April to stay. And then thing would be back to… well, no, they wouldn't be back to normal. What would be left? It used to be that she could tell April anything, but now this gulf between them couldn't be bridged. They would watch Sex and the City, they would catch up over lunch, but these would just be a shell of what had been. Ann had told April everything, even when she was fairly sure April would hate her, but she never did. And now, if they couldn't say anything, it would be lost. Maybe April hated her now, anyway. Again.

Ann felt sick; it felt like a pathetic charade to be friends without talking about this. A compromise that cut down into the marrow.

But there wasn't much choice. It was that, or being alone. She grabbed her keys from the counter and started toward the door.

Ann was good at these decisions; she had been trained to do this. In her line of work, they called it triage. Learning to make the least worst call. And right now, anything was better than spending the rest of her life confronting April as a stranger around Pawnee

The parking lot was empty, and the black asphalt reflected the glow of the "Goodwill" sign. Ann got out of the car and walked around, shoving her hands into the shallow pockets of her cardigan, trying to ward off the chilly air. It was a lot like that night a long time ago, when they had dropped off her boxes, though it had been warmer then.

She conjured up the strange image of a box with "APRIL" written on it. It felt wrong. April was too good for that to happen to her; she could never do that to her. And besides, she didn't want to be the kind of person who kept boxes any more.

It was a little ironic to worry about that, anyway. April had been the one who prompted her to get rid of the boxes. And that was strange – it wasn't actually that long ago when they dropped off those boxes – it just felt like a long time.

She no longer knew the Ann who had kept those boxes in her closet. Life wasn't any better now – it might even be a little worse – but she knew was that she didn't want to be that person again. And that was purely because of April. That night they had driven back in comfortable silence, smiling. Now Ann rested her forehead on the steering wheel, eyes nearly closing, as she remembered it, feeling warm. That night it was dark, but April's eyes had reflected the slow passing of the yellow and green of the stoplights that passed overhead

Leaves blew sideways into the road as Ann passed a group of children throwing rocks at a fence. Leslie's house was only a couple blocks away. Ann wasn't sure if April would go back there or not. If she was, there was a chance that right now she was back in Andy's arms. The thought made her uncomfortable, and she told herself it was because she just didn't want things to go back to the way they had been. Them together, April hating her. As if was out of her control entirely, as if this had been a long detour, and they had to end up there, after all. Ann would have to get used to being alone, again, the steep learning curve that wasn't so much about accepting loneliness as it was about giving up everything.

She pulled into Leslie's driveway, got out, and knocked on the door. No answer. She tried the door handle – Leslie absentmindedly used to leave it unlocked – and it opened.

The house was dark and quiet, the living room still cluttered from April's boxes. Actually, they weren't just April's – they were labeled "APRIL/ANDY." Of course they were. They were married. April was still married when she kissed her.

Ann made her way over to the bed in the corner and laid down, looking up at the ceiling. The texture made it look like an overlapping quilt of galaxies and stars.

Ann frowned. She had had that thought before. She had laid here, looking up at the ceiling, right after she and April had moved the mattress in from the house to Leslie's. They had fallen asleep, next to each other – had April felt that way about her even then? If she had, April hadn't let on. That night, Ann had woken up, and started to go home, but decided to wake April up, too. There in the dim light she had touched April's shoulder, for no reason, other than a strange pull that wanted to keep her near. And the pull was still in her – it was why she had been driving all over town, looking for her. How strange – even then she had April. And now she needed April even more.

She just wasn't sure for what.

Ann was starting to get desperate as she pulled into the Hospital parking lot. Midnight would come soon; it was already dark and hazy, occasional cars filling the road with a sickly yellow light.

There was probably no reason April would be here, but she felt like she had to check. And it wasn't so crazy that April would come here. Maybe she had thought things over; maybe she was looking for her here, trying to talk to her. She wanted to talk to April so desperately, the idea that April wanted to talk to her, too, almost forced itself into her consciousness. And besides, it seemed fitting to find her here – April had helped her choose to work here.

That seemed like such a long time ago. It had happened at home, the warm light making everything that seemed hard about April look soft. She wondered how many people had ever seen that side of April.

Now the light in the hospital was bright and artificial, and the lobby stank of cleaning fluid and used bandages. Had she really chosen this? In a way she had dodged a bullet – her Health Department job would have vanished with April's if she had stayed on. And for once she hadn't decided because of Leslie pushing her – or Mark, or Chris, or Tom. April hadn't made her decide. She had helped her decide. And God, if April felt then the way she did now, she must have wanted her to stay at City Hall. She could have manipulated her to satisfy her own need, and Ann would have been ripe for it. She would have stayed. And April knew that, too. And still April helped her choose the hospital, anyway, even though it was far from her.

Ann stopped in her tracks, brought up short by how strange that act was, compared to how everyone had always treated her. In the pause, she wondered if that was what love was.

Why anyone, much less someone as good as April, would love her – well, that wasn't going to make sense, no matter what.

It felt like a puzzle, haunting her, occupying her thoughts even as she walked around the cold hospital. She looked into an examination room as she walked past. Instead she saw a face, vaguely familiar, which she couldn't place right away – a woman with sad eyes, and a little boy wearing a Spider-Man shirt. She paused, and turned toward her.

She wanted to keep looking for April, but part of her felt like this was important, and she stopped. "Is everything OK?" she asked.

"Yes, it is now," the woman answered, a small smile emerging on her deeply-lined face. "You said David might have 'rotavirus'. He's never been vaccinated – we've heard things, bad things, about… I mean, we were wrong. He just got some medicine now. He's already feeling better, and it's just been a couple of hours. I think he's going to be OK."

Ann stared for a second until the memory came back, her confrontation with the doctor still a little raw.

"Thank you," the woman said. "I know that doctor, well, he didn't believe you. But I'm glad you said something."

Ann nodded, almost as if on automatic. "Thank you," she said, not quite sure what else to say.

The woman was starting to pick up how shaken up Ann was, but by then, Ann was drifting out of the room, back into the hallway.

Ann felt something vaguely familiar, from long ago, like remembering a smell you loved as a child, but not being able to place it. The feeling was like getting a deep breath after being under water too long. Like she had done something that was complete, something that was actually really done, once and for all.

That was the feeling, she realized, that let her sleep at night.

Or, at least, she would have been able to that night, she thought, if April was back home. That was all she could wish for right now, and if April did come back home, if the dim light of the bedroom played on her features once more, she would finally feel complete, needing nothing.

Ann walked out, a little bit overwhelmed by what she was feeling. She picked up speed, her heart racing as the pull emptied every other need out of her. She checked with the front desk for April; they hadn't seen her.

Her thoughts shifted and turned in a racing tumult, trying to figure out where else April could be, but coming up empty.

Ann stopped herself as she realized something. It might not be possible to find April in Pawnee.

April turned her back against the wind, shivering. She twisted the dried, dead stem of a flower in her fingers, the brown filaments steadily tearing apart. It broke in two, and she threw the pieces back into the flower pot where she found it, there in the smallest park in Pawnee. The dead plants surrounding her rustled in the wind, and she wondered how much money it saved the city to stop watering them.

It was cold, and she wanted to go somewhere warm, but she couldn't go back to Leslie's, and there was no way she was going back to Ann's. For the thousandth time she replayed Ann's voice saying, "I think you're confused." Like it was some sort of warning. There was a tone there that had never been in Ann's voice when they talked about Andy, or watched Sex and the City, or the night Ann fell asleep on April's shoulder. And that could have continued, for who knows how long, if she just hadn't kissed her. It was such a small thing – why couldn't she take it back, make it not happen? After the kiss everything started slipping away, and any moment it would finally feel like she was left with nothing.

It felt so slow at the time, but she should have seen all of this coming – God, it almost seemed inevitable. Yesterday she wanted to spend a thousand nights with Ann, even if she was in Pawnee. Now there was no reason to stay. She fished a cigarette out of the pack she bought off a guy at the bus station, and lit it, the small flame flickering in the wind. She took a drag, and the sharp, gritty smoke burned, but gave way to a slight fogginess that dulled the cold of the biting wind.

Maybe, she thought, she should let Ann know that she was going to Wilmington. But there was no point. Ann wouldn't change her mind. Maybe she'd try to convince April to stay with some pitiful pitch, trying to show how things could go back to normal. As if they could watch Sex and the City and April would sleep on the couch, and somehow they'd ignore the fact that April wished she was in Ann's bed, instead. The thought of that conversation brought on a thick wave of nausea. Ann, of all people, should know that she can't stay. No, she wouldn't tell her; sooner or later, Ann would find out, and she would understand. Maybe she was the only one who would.

But Andy wouldn't. She couldn't bear to see his face, not for a moment; telling him in person was out of the question. She found her notebook in her bag and tore out a ragged piece of paper. Andy, she wrote. She tried to find the words to explain it – or, at least, something she could write without breaking down. Something that wouldn't hurt him. She took another drag of the cigarette and watched the white smoke swirl against the gray sky. She looked around at the dead flowers softly rattling in the breeze as she sat alone on the small bench, but the words weren't there. She put the pen to paper, hoping that something would come. She wrote the only thing she could, and ended the note with a period: I'm sorry.