Through the Fire and the Night

Nora came out of prison years after she went in, and Southhaven was not the city she had left. Her family had been the richest in it. She had gone inside over her own birthday party. Joseph forced himself on her there, she fought him off, and she was the one who ended up charged. Barrett was the man she had loved before all of it. When she ran into him again he looked past her as though he did not know her, and walked on. She started over with what was left to her, and the work of it took the softness out of her, because nothing else would have kept her standing. It was at her worst point that she learned Barrett had never gone cold on her. He had kept what he felt out of sight and had been going on ahead the whole time, clearing things out of her way before she got to them.