It wasn’t easy to get out of the city but anyway they were trying. He was driving while she looked out the window silently and watched the roads going by. It was drizzling, rain just slightly heavier than fog that made everything more vivid. The berms were so green they hurt her eyes.

They went through a tunnel and just like that they were out of the city and into the hills. He stopped the car on the shoulder where the trees came down close beside the road, where shaggy branches arched out over the road and kept the asphalt just that little bit drier. She got out of the car and listened to the engine hissing as it cooled, listened to the rain among the cedars. Chunk went his door and it was muffled and distant. He came over and stood next to her, looked up the hill to where the light was brighter, where the woods opened.

At the top of the hill they stopped, slightly out of breath, scaled cedar leaves pressed into their hair and tangled in their coat sleeves.

She threaded her arm through his and they looked down on the city, softened by rain.