A bicycle store parking lot was a strange place for someone to wait for a ride, but you can never tell. I found Michelle's hand in the darkness and squeezed it slightly. We had been in that house almost a month. The roof leaked a little, and the lock on the back door didn't work quite right, but the rent was cheap and it was the first place we'd lived in together. It was nice knowing that it was possible for us to look out of a window and see someone else who wasn't quite as well-off as we were. Kind of comforting.

The girl across the street was still moving her head in that strange rhythm. If I didn't know any better, I'd have said she were crying. If I really wanted to think about why she was there, I might have thought she had been beaten or raped by a boyfriend or a stranger and was trying to cope with it. The aftermath and all its separate traumas.

"If I was waiting for a ride," Michelle said, "I'd be where she is. In the shadows where it's safe. That's probably it. She's waiting for a friend of hers to come pick her up."

"It looks like it," I said.

Michelle stared out the window a little longer.

She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, saying, "I think it's time for bed."

I watched her leave the room, her long dark hair swaying back and forth on her back. I heard the bathroom door open and close with a creak. Those hinges needed greasing. Just one more thing to do to a house after moving in.

I looked out at the girl once again. Alone in her world of night. The bicycle store parking lot was painfully empty and the sign in the window reading "30-50% Off Entire Stock!"  seemed cruelly inappropriate.