it's almost two a.m. and i don't think there's anything anyone can do for
abigail harris now. abigail is purple-smudges-under-her-eyes tired
on the carpet of the living room floor. she seems to hear a siren coming,
but it fades in the distance after a while.

it's become a habit for her to make excuses, to skid around the fact of
the matter. and in the end, even the skim-milk ceiling cannot tell her
what to say because when it comes right down to it, she knows the
answer already. for once in her life, the answer is clear. and that answer
is as heartbreaking and terrifying as it is obvious.
move on.

those two words resonate in her mind like the final chords of a moving
requiem. they pulse through her veins and she hears them following her
in the street; the clickclickclick of her heels morphing into
move on, move on, move on.

they haunt her at work as well, when he's talking about the yearly
gross domestic products and suddenly she can't remember why she
majored in economics in college. move on. move on.

come on, abigail, move on. abigail harris thinks that today is the day she'll
wake up and realize that she has truly moved on. she's hoping that's true.
and abigail is gaining confidence as well as speed, zipping into her office
faster than she's ever done in the past three years she's worked here.
he's getting on the elevator and, for once, she's going to get on at the same
time he does. after all, she has moved on.