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so much.
    The light changed and she walked on, her fingers clenched
around the key until its teeth bit into the palm of her hand. She wasn’t so sure
herself. The way her career was going at UNESCO, there was scarcely time to
squeeze in a trip upstate to see her own mom, let alone raise a kid.
    On the other hand, her twenty-eight-year-old body was awash in
hormones raining from an invisible emptiness inside her, just begging to
procreate.
    She wondered what Orlando would say if she brought it up. He’d
probably bolt for the nearest exit. They were still too new, key or no key. He
had told her long ago that he wanted to postpone having kids. There would be
plenty of time for that unspecified “someday.”
    As far as she was concerned, nothing could dampen her spirits
today. She had the ultimate good news to share, and she was about to share it
with the two people who would totally get how cool it was.
    She’d been racing around madly all day, trying to get ready for
this new chapter in her life. A Hartstone Fellowship. She, Sonnet Romano, from
the tiny town of Avalon on Willow Lake, had been chosen for the honor. People
who won the Hartstone Fellowship tended to change the world. She’d always been
eager to measure up to her father’s expectations. Personal accomplishments were
so important to her father. She could understand that. They validated you, told
the world you did things that mattered.
    As usual, she was in a hurry. It was her normal mode. She had
hurried through school, graduating with a 4.0 GPA and zooming ahead to her dream
school, American University. From there she’d pursued a double major in French
and international studies, then raced ahead to grad school. Sometimes she asked
herself what the hurry was, but mostly, she didn’t slow down long enough to
wonder.
    And it was working well for her. The letter in her satchel was
proof of that, for sure.
    As she hurried down the stairs to catch the train—she was on
the verge of being late, an unforgivable offense in her father’s book—her phone
chimed, signaling an incoming text message, sneaking in just before she lost the
signal underground. At the same time, she heard the train rattling into the
station. She rushed to slip her pass through the turnstile and proceed into the
fecund heat of the underground station.
    The train’s moon-yellow headlights were filmed with the
ever-present dirt of the subway, and its brakes gave a tired-sounding squeal.
The doors clanked apart, disgorging streams of passengers. Just as quickly,
people on the platform boarded. She paused and bent down to help a woman with a
stroller over the gap between the platform and the train car.
    At the same time, she thought about the text message that had
come in. She didn’t know what made her grab for her phone just in that moment;
she got text messages all the time. Habit, probably. Or it could be Daisy’s
cryptic comment about checking in with her mom.
    As Sonnet stepped across the gap and took out her phone.
someone jostled her from behind. Both the phone and the key dropped from her
hand. She saw a coppery flash as the key disappeared onto the tracks, and her
heart sank along with it. The phone screen stayed lit momentarily. Before it
slipped from her hand, she saw the name of the sender of the incoming message:
Zach Alger.
    A crush of passengers pressed in from behind. The doors clanked
shut, and the train lurched away.
    Sonnet grabbed a safety pole and clenched her jaw. Her stomach
turned to a ball of ice. You made me drop the key ,
she silently seethed. Prepare to die .
    His name on the screen reminded her that she should have taken
him off her contact list months ago. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she could
erase him from her mind. She used to look forward with pleasure to his text
messages, but now the thought of him made her shudder.
    Given where she was now, her relationship with Orlando moving
ahead, Zach could ruin everything. Having sex with him the night of