One person leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Another stared at the floor, not impatiently now, but thoughtfully. The elevator hadn’t moved. But something else had

All day, the key nagged her. At work, at lunch, even on the ride home. Its ridges felt strangely familiar. That night, she pulled out an old wooden jewelry box she hadn’t touched in a decade—the one her mother had given her at sixteen, the year everything fell apart.