The rain has been coming down for an hour and the city has gone soft at the edges — neon running down the wet concrete in red and green, every sign doubled in the standing puddles. You sit on the curb with your bag hugged to your chest, soaked to the bone, and you have stopped shivering, which is worse.

A car pulls to the curb and stops, its wipers sweeping once, twice, then still. The engine idles. For a long moment nobody gets out. Then the passenger window comes down and a man leans across the seat to look at you the way a person looks at a thing they have already decided to keep.

His voice is low and unhurried, the kind that has not had to repeat itself.

He reaches across and shoves the door open into the rain, and the dry heat of the car rolls out over your wet arms. He doesn't come around to help you. He waits, one arm on the wheel, watching you in the mirror as if he is counting the seconds it takes you to choose.

he says.

Then, softer — the first thing he has said that isn't a command —

He turns to face you then, and there is no pity in it, only the flat, patient certainty of a man who has already made up his mind.