The wind outside the grocery store cut straight through my coat, the kind of cold that reminded me of nights I had tried hard to forget.
I tucked my grocery bags closer and walked toward my SUV, my keys warm in my gloved hand. The heated seats would be on in 30 seconds.
That was the life I had now.
Years ago, I had slept in a bus station with $12 folded inside my purse. I used my coat as a blanket and prayed nobody would notice the girl in the corner.
I never told anyone at the country club that story. I never told them the other story either.
I never told them how, on our third date, Mark had stepped over a man sleeping in a doorway and muttered something about “those people” choosing their lot in life.
How I had laughed nervously and let it go, because he had just paid for a dinner that cost more than my weekly rent, and because his certainty about the world felt like a roof I could finally stand under.