"Kent left you to die in a subway tunnel, Kent can go fuck himself." Staring at the kettle doesn't help it boil, but it's like--that fucking mental condition. If it's just Ty's voice at his back, it's like it's really him. If he just doesn't look at him, it almost makes sense.

Doesn't make it any less surreal

"You didn't cause any trouble," he promises. Not then, not even now. "You just walked into it while the don't fucking walk sign was blinking." Which they have in common, if each of his new scars can attest. "I have been up to surviving a world with no electronics, no central heating, no grocery stores. It's like the quarantine never ended, except with trees and complete strangers."