Instead of a bright bandana or carefully set pin curls, Fab wore a blue knit hat with the white symbol of one of the sporting teams people in New York fought over. Her hair peeked out from under the cap, the tight curls framing her face by nature and not design. Her coat was of the knee-length down variety, black, and she wore jeans tucked into tan ankle-high work boots. She was still beautiful, but she was dressed . . . practically. It jarred Likotsi.

“I mean . . . hi?” Fab grabbed the pole over Likotsi’s seat and looked down. Her eyes were wide, displaying her emotions like a mega-screen at Forty-Second Street, and what they advertised was shock and, more surprisingly, uncertainty. Fab’s mouth twitched, but then she pressed her lips together.

From this angle, Likotsi could see Fab’s earrings nestled beneath her curls: finely spun metal shaped into three-dimensional teardrops. How appropriate.

“Fabiola.” Likotsi leaned back in her seat insouciantly, though she’d spent most of her train ride perched on the edge of her seat to avoid dirtying her coat unnecessarily. She refused to crane her neck up, though, and she didn’t trust her ability to stand just then.

“The one and only,” Fab replied with a mock curtsy. The overwhelming familiarity of her voice drove the cactus thorn deeper into Likotsi’s heart.

Goddess, Likotsi loved a woman with confidence. She loved this one in particular. But love didn’t change the fact that this woman had hurt her—that she could do the same if given another chance.

“Out of all the train cars in all the world you had to walk into mine.” Likotsi switched up which ankle was resting on which knee, the action forcing Fab to take a step back, then tilted her chin toward the doors separating the cars. “You’re only supposed to use those in case of emergency.”

“I’d say that seeing you a few feet away counts as an emergency.” Fab slipped gracefully into the empty seat next to Likotsi, crossing her own legs so that the toe of her boot almost grazed the sole of Likotsi’s brogue.

She wasn’t dressed in her usual style, but she smelled the same—like rosewater and orange blossoms and vanilla—and Likotsi wanted to hug her tightly and inhale, to fill her lungs with that scent she’d imagined waking up to every day.

Fab just looked at her, her expression so earnest that Likotsi started to wonder whether they really hadn’t spoken for months. If, perhaps, there had been some misunderstanding when Fab had ended things.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Likotsi had imagined what would happen if she ran into Fab, especially since Naledi had mentioned how often she randomly encountered people she knew in this city teeming with strangers. Likotsi had fabricated a million droll put-downs. She’d mentally practiced the iciest cut direct known to humankind, one that would make everyone in the vicinity wince for Fab’s bruised ego.

She would be angry.

Instead, she was confused. Nothing felt different. Now that the initial shock had faded, Likotsi found that the chasm of months that separated them felt no larger than a crack in the sidewalk. She wanted so badly to smile, to ask Fab how her day was going or why she was wearing a horrid mass-produced hat and coat.

She’d thought that Fab had smashed their connection like a smartphone beneath a car tire, but all their data had been saved on a cloud drive somewhere, it seemed, and was happily downloading and ready to resume where they’d left off.

No. She couldn’t do that to herself again. Her official title was Advisor Most High, and she knew what pithy aphorism she would impart upon anyone who came to her with this problem: bind the finger before it is cut.

“That was very cute,” Likotsi said, forcing steel into her tone. “The video and the swiping again. If this was a dating app, I would have had to swipe right, too, for you to continue the conversation.”

Fab winced, but Likotsi paid the motion no heed. She’d had her day all planned out—it was a new year and she was wearing her walking shoes and she was going to be done with this—and now Fab had barged in, stirring up the emotions that Likotsi sought to settle.

“What are you in town for?” Fab asked, ignoring Likotsi’s jab. “I didn’t expect you to be in the ‘exes I awkwardly run into’ category.”

“You didn’t awkwardly run into me. You spammed my phone with unwanted photos and videos to get my attention,” Likotsi corrected. “How did you even know which phone was mine?”

“I mean, DandyQueen is pretty obvious.” Fab was looking at Likotsi with an intensity that didn’t match her tone, and when she spoke again her voice was strained. “What are you doing here?”

The question held a timbre of sadness and regret, one Likotsi had heard from Fab before.

“Why do you have to leave so soon?”

The irrational desire to hug Fab shoved at Likotsi again, but she held fast. She reached for her determination to move on, donning it like a sleek cape that would protect her from the pull of nostalgia.

“My job temporarily relocated to Manhattan. I’ve been here since September.” Likotsi’s voice was cold as an ice flow in the river. “You would have known that if you hadn’t ghosted me.”

Likotsi hadn’t understood the term when Ledi and Portia had first explained it to her in terms of the dating world. Ghost was a noun, not a verb, but she’d supposed it had a certain poetic ring to it—disappearing like a ghost. It made more sense now that she put it in the context of having Fab this close to her again. It wasn’t just the disappearing, but the grief as real as any loss.