“Anna— are you okay?” he started, his voice shifting into that careful tone people use when they want to be supportive but don’t want to get pulled into the gravity of your crisis.
“Emergency,” I said. I don’t even remember if the word came out clearly. My throat felt tight, full of cotton. I was already gone.
The elevator took forever. Every floor it stopped on felt like an insult. When the doors finally opened into the parking garage, the air was hotter than it should’ve been, thick and stale. Outside, the city was in the middle of a heatwave that had been building for days. The weather app had been sending warnings like a parent: Stay hydrated. Avoid prolonged sun exposure. Check on vulnerable people.
I ran anyway.
My footsteps slapped the concrete, echoing between the pillars. Halfway to my spot I saw it— not my car, but the empty space where it should’ve been.
I stopped so abruptly my body lurched forward. For a moment I just stood there breathing too hard, staring at the painted lines as if they might rearrange themselves into an explanation.
Then it clicked. Of course.
I had loaned my car to my sister, Amanda, that morning. She had called right after breakfast with that tone of casual need she used when asking for something she already assumed she’d get.
“Hey,” she’d said, cheerful. “We’re taking the kids to the Lakeside Fun Park today, but our second car’s not available. Can we borrow yours? It’ll be easier to fit everyone in one vehicle.”
I’d been packing Lucy’s lunch, listening to her chatter about a craft project at school. My first instinct had been to hesitate. It was a weekday. I had work. But my parents were off, Amanda was off, and they’d said they were taking Lucy too. My mother had even chimed in over speakerphone, sweetly: “It’ll be good for her to have cousin time.”
And I— because I am who I’ve been trained to be— had said yes.
“Yes, sure. Of course.”
I didn’t have time to think about the morning now. I pulled out my phone, ordered a taxi with fingers that couldn’t keep still, and paced like an animal trapped in a too-small cage while the app told me cheerfully that my driver was three minutes away.
Three minutes is nothing. Three minutes is a song on the radio. Three minutes is how long it takes to boil water if you’re paying attention.
Those three minutes stretched like taffy.