Chapter Six
Harper
I jogged down the stairs to the front door of my building with Stanley at my side. It was a small thing, but I loved how the stairs curved along the wall. It always felt as if I was spinning slowly down a slide and out the front door. I had a little buzz of joy inside, knowing I was about to walk out and meet Alex for another run. After he’d invited me to run with him in the mornings, I’d quickly fallen into a pattern of meeting him daily. Unbeknownst to him, his offer had given me a small gift. I used to run outside all the time, hours upon hours every week. In a blink, I lost the joy of it after an early morning run in that time where the light hadn’t quite washed away the darkness. Crossing paths with Joe at that in between time had ripped my joy away. Joe who seeme
