Patrick crosses the same fifty feet of beach, over and over, with the sand in his shoes and a warm coat buttoned tight and his hands in his pockets. He is warm. He is warm and he does not care. His feet hurt. His fingernails dig into his palms, leaving marks, perhaps even drawing blood, muffled there, deep in his warm pockets.
Patrick remembers. She slept like a cat in the afternoons, curled in the sunlight, naked. He has not slept in the bed since, and the last depression is still there, the pit, the hole where she slept. He remembers the O of her mouth, the shocked opening as he, before he, after he slapped her. Not hard. And she came at him with claws outstretched, she dug into him, she was fierce and pitiless and when she was done he was punctured, pointless. She had shredded him and left nothing but the frame, the stick figure that could only walk, endless on a beach. No room for a heart. Nowhere to put it.
Patrick alone.
There are no stars tonight. The sky is dark and empty. The sky is full of black holes, and the stars have fallen through, dying.
Patrick deciding.