“Do you like me even just a little?” Riggs had asked, hating himself. “I’m not here to be someplace else,” she had hissed, stubbing out a freshly lit cigarette beneath a sharp heel. He didn’t know whether she was quoting some important thinker – Nietzsche? – or just tired. He took it as a yes. She was tired. She liked him. And that night in his nightmares, alone in his own bed, the heel was a dagger putting out his eyes. The next morning he felt tired, but he had forgotten the incident, and Britt was the whole world as he whistled into his coffee.