Chapter 4: Pinned Against the Dresser
The door clicked shut behind Pete, and the apartment fell into a silence so complete that Ender could hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen, the drip of the faucet he'd never been able to fix, the distant wail of a siren somewhere in the city.
He didn't move.
Pete's footsteps receded down the hallway—heavy, uneven, the steps of a man who'd had too much to drink and didn't care who knew it. Ender listened to the sound of the bedroom door opening, the creak of the mattress as Pete collapsed onto it, the grunt of satisfaction as he settled into the sheets.
Then nothing.
The silence stretched. Ender counted his heartbeats, felt them pounding against his ribs like trapped birds. He was still standing in the kitchen, dish towel clutched in his hands, staring at the counter without seeing it.
The memory of the drive back from the lake clawed at him. The heavy silence in the truck. Marcus's hand high on his thigh. The motel room with its flickering neon sign and the bed that had creaked with every thrust.
He'd showered twice when he got home. Scrubbed his skin until it was raw, until the water ran cold. But he could still feel it—the ghost of Marcus's hands on his hips, the ache deep inside him, the taste of copper where he'd bitten through his lip to keep from screaming.
He'd never done anything like that before.
Not with Marcus. Not like that—not for money, not with someone watching, not with his own husband sitting in a chair and jerking himself off to the sound of Ender being fucked.
Something inside him had fractured. He could feel it, a hairline crack running through the center of who he was. He didn't know if it would heal.
Ender set the dish towel down. His hands were steady now—steadier than they'd been all night. He walked to the bathroom, closed the door, and locked it.
The mirror was cracked in the corner, a spiderweb of silver lines that split his reflection into fractured pieces. He looked at himself—really looked—for the first time in months.
His lip was swollen. His left eye had a shadow beneath it, already purpling into a bruise. His hair hung limp and tangled around his face, and his glasses were crooked from where Marcus had knocked them askew.
He looked like a man who'd been through a war.
He reached up, adjusted his glasses, and studied his reflection with something like detachment. This was what he looked like now. This was what he'd become.
For a long moment, he just stood there, breathing.
Then he moved.
He opened the medicine cabinet, and his eyes scanned the shelves—the expired cold medicine, the half-empty bottle of ibuprofen, the rusted tweezers Pete had never thrown away. His hand hovered over the small plastic box that held the razor blades, fingers trembling.
Clean incisions. Precise. A hot bath and a blade, and all of it would stop.
No more Marcus. No more Pete. No more Sunday visits or bruised hips or the taste of copper on his tongue.
He picked up the box. It was light in his hand, almost weightless. The blade inside was thin, silver, still wrapped in its paper sheath. Ender held it for a long moment, feeling the cool weight of possibility against his palm.
The water stain on the ceiling. The one shaped like a hand. He'd stared at it so many times, memorized its contours, its branching fingers, its strange resemblance to something reaching down. He'd traced it with his eyes while Pete grunted on top of him, while Marcus shoved his face into the mattress, while his own hands clenched the sheets and he waited for it to be over.
The hand on the ceiling had been his only constant. His anchor. The thing he focused on when everything else was too much to bear.
His thumb hovered over the box.
Then he put it back.
The click of the cabinet door closing echoed through the small bathroom. Ender leaned his hands on the cracked porcelain sink, head bowed. Silent. Trembling.
He didn't do it.
He wanted to. God, he wanted to. The thought of ending it all was a seduction—quiet, painless, permanent. No more pain. No more fear. No more Pete.
But there was Josh.
Josh, who lived three states away.
Josh, who had a spare room.
Josh, who had looked at Ender's bruises with a question in his eyes that he never asked.
Josh, who was no-contact with Pete, who had called him a parasite, who had changed his number.
Josh might take him in. Josh might help. Josh might give Ender a place to stay until he could figure out what came next.
Or Josh might not.
The thought was a knife, twisting. What if he gets there and Josh won't open the door? What if Josh has moved on, has a new life, doesn't want to be dragged into his brother's mess?
What if Ender runs and finds out he has nowhere to go?
That's a chance worth taking. That's better than this.
He raised his head. Looked at his reflection again. The cracked mirror multiplied his face, showed him a dozen versions of himself—bruised, broken, exhausted. But underneath the damage, there was something else. Something harder. Something that hadn't quite been beaten out of him yet.
Determination.
He fumbled for the light switch, flipped it off, and let the darkness swallow the room.
—
Ender didn't sleep.
He lay on the opposite edge of the bed, as far from Pete as he could get without falling off, and stared at the wall. Pete was snoring—deep, rumbling snores that vibrated through the mattress, that filled the small bedroom with the sound of unconscious indifference.
He was always like this after a punishment. He'd pass out cold and sleep like a baby, like nothing had happened, like his conscience was clean. Ender had never understood that—how a person could do the things Pete did and then sleep so peacefully, as if they'd done nothing wrong.
But maybe that was the secret. Pete didn't think he'd done anything wrong. Pete thought Ender deserved it. Pete thought he owned Ender's body, his time, his labor, his very existence.
Pete had called him a parasite, but Pete was the one feeding off him—his wages, his body, his fear. Without Ender, Pete would be nothing. No money, no apartment, no access to the life he'd built on Ender's back.
The thought sat with him. Simmering.
Ender turned his head, looked at Pete's profile in the dark. The man who had promised to love and protect him. The man who had vowed, in front of a judge and witnesses, to be his partner for life.
He'd meant none of it. It had all been theater—a show for the people who would never see the bruises, who would never hear the screams, who would never know the truth behind the closed door of Apartment 4D.
Ender had told himself, in the early years, that things would get better. Pete would change. Pete would learn to love him the way he'd promised. They could be happy.
He'd been lying to himself.
He wasn't lying anymore.
The clock on the nightstand ticked. Ender watched the numbers flicker as he lay there—12:47, 12:48, 12:49—each minute a countdown to something. It felt like waiting for a storm to break. He kept his breathing shallow, kept his body still, kept his eyes fixed on the wall until his vision blurred and the numbers on the clock became meaningless.
At 1:22, he heard a car pass outside. At 1:47, the heat kicked on with a groan. At 2:13, Pete rolled over, and Ender flinched—but Pete just grunted in his sleep and settled again.
At some point after three, Ender drifted into something like rest.
It wasn't sleep. It was closer to blankness—a gray, empty space where thoughts dissolved and time disappeared. He floated there for hours, or maybe minutes, until the first light of dawn bled through the grimy window and the sound of birds began filtering through the thin walls.
Then he got up.
He was careful—so careful—as he eased off the mattress. Pete didn't stir. Pete's snores continued, steady as ever. Ender grabbed his jeans from the floor, his shirt from the back of the chair, and tiptoed out of the bedroom.
The apartment smelled like stale beer and old onions. He'd have to clean before Pete woke up—scrub the counters, take out the trash, wash the dishes from last night. But first, there was something else he needed to do.
He went to the kitchen and found the listing beside the phone. Friday's shift. Noon to eight. He'd take it. He'd take every shift Marisol offered, every hour he could get without Pete asking too many questions.
Then he walked to the living room. The couch sagged under his weight as he sat down, and he reached for the laptop they'd bought three years ago—the one Pete had used for online poker before he'd switched to the betting app on his phone.
It took forever to boot up. The screen flickered, dimmed, brightened again. Ender waited, jaw tight, until the desktop finally appeared.
He opened the browser. His heart drummed an uneven beat against his abused ribs as he typed into the search bar:
Bus tickets
The search results loaded.
Ender's breath caught.
Three states away. He could do it. It would take sixteen hours—a bus from the station downtown, a transfer in a city he'd never heard of, another bus to a town called Cedar Falls.
Cedar Falls.
Josh lived there. Josh, who had a spare room. Josh, who had a girlfriend and a dog and a life that didn't include Pete.
He exited the browser. Deleted the history. Closed the laptop.
His hands were ice-cold, but his chest felt warm.
—
The sun was fully up by the time Pete stumbled out of the bedroom.
Ender was at the stove, scrambling eggs he didn't plan to eat. He heard Pete's footsteps, heavy and hungover, and didn't turn around.
"Morning," he said.
Pete grunted. He poured himself a cup of coffee, dumped in three spoons of sugar, and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair disheveled, his face twisted into a scowl.
"You look like shit," he said.
Ender shrugged. "Didn't sleep well."
"Join the club."
Ender scraped the eggs onto a plate and set them in front of Pete. Then he poured himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter, sipping it slowly.
"You're eating?" Pete asked, mouth full.
Ender shook his head. "I already ate."
It was a lie. He hadn't eaten since yesterday at work—a stale muffin Marisol had given him, dry and crumbly, plus the half-pasta from the night before. But the last thing he wanted was food. His stomach felt like a knot, tight and nauseous, and eating would only make it worse.
Not eating was one thing he could still control—the one small rebellion his body could afford.
"Suit yourself." Pete chewed with his mouth open, indifferent as always. "You working today?"
"Marisol called. I'm covering a shift."
Pete's eyebrows lifted. "Yeah? How much?"
"Same as always. Minimum wage."
"That ain't much."
"It's something."
Pete grunted. Took another bite. "You get paid Monday?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I need to send some to my brother."
Ender's hand tightened around his glass. "I thought Josh wasn't talking to you."
Pete's eyes flicked up. Cold. Sharp. "I got other brothers."
But Josh was on the computer. Josh was in Oregon. Josh was three states away.
Ender's mind raced.
"I'll bring home whatever I make," he said.
Pete nodded and returned to his eggs.
—
The diner was slow for a Friday.
Ender wiped down the same counter three times, refilled ketchup bottles he'd already refilled, and watched the clock with an intensity he couldn't quite hide. Marisol noticed—she always noticed—but she didn't say anything. She just kept refilling his coffee and giving him those sideways looks, the ones that said I see you, the ones that said I know something's wrong.
Ender avoided her eyes.
At six, the dinner rush hit. A family of six, a date night couple, two teenagers who lingered over their sodas. Ender took orders, refilled drinks, dropped a plate that shattered on the floor and had to be swept up while everyone stared.
At eight, Marisol closed the register and counted the cash. She slid a folded bill across the counter toward Ender—fifty dollars, more than usual.
"Take it," she said, before he could protest. "You look like you need it."
He did.
He folded the bill and slipped it into his shoe, where Pete wouldn't think to look.
—
Halfway home, Ender stopped.
The bus station was two blocks out of his way, a squat brick building tucked between a pawn shop and an abandoned laundromat.
He'd never been inside, but he knew what it was—had passed it a thousand times on his way to work, had stared at it through the diner window, had imagined walking in and never coming out.
He pushed through the door.
Inside, the station smelled of old coffee and floor wax. Two men sat in plastic chairs, heads bent over their phones, and a woman in a blue uniform stood behind a counter.
Ender approached.
"I want to buy a ticket," he said.
The woman looked up. Bored. Unremarkable. "Where to?"
"Oregon. Cedar Falls."
She typed something into her computer. "One way?"
Ender's stomach twisted.
He thought of Pete, slumped in the kitchen chair. He thought of the empty bottles on the counter, the stain shaped like a hand, the way his body still ached in places he couldn't name.
He thought of Josh. The spare room. The question in his eyes.
"One way," Ender said.
The woman quoted a price. Ender's shoulders sagged.
"I only have fifty dollars."
She told him the rate to Oregon was two hundred and sixty. More than five times the cash in his shoe.
He could earn it. He could save up. He could take extra shifts, hide the tips, work his hands raw until he had enough.
"No," Ender said, quieter now. He slid his fifty across the counter. "What does fifty get me?"
The woman pursed her lips. "Portland's a hundred and ten. Boise's eighty-five. Salt Lake's seventy."
Ender's heart pounded. His pulse thrummed in his throat.
"I'll take Salt Lake," he said.
She printed the ticket. Ender didn't let go of it for the rest of the walk home.
The ticket burned in his shoe like a live coal, a secret he could feel with every step. He walked the rest of the way home with his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed on the sidewalk, counting cracks in the concrete to keep from counting the days ahead.
Three days until payday.
Three days until he could buy the rest of the fare—two hundred and ten more dollars, a number that felt both impossible and essential. He'd have to take every shift Marisol offered, pick up extras, maybe ask for a loan against his next paycheck. He'd have to hide the money somewhere Pete would never think to look.
The apartment was dark when Ender slipped through the door. No TV, no raised voices, no clink of beer bottles. Just silence and the faint smell of stale cigarettes.
Pete was passed out on the couch.
Ender stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching his husband sleep. Pete's mouth hung open, a thin line of drool on his cheek. His hand was curled around an empty whiskey bottle, and his phone was still lit up on his chest—some gambling app, the screen flashing with numbers Ender didn't understand.
He looked smaller like this. Less like a monster, more like a man who'd drunk himself into oblivion. But Ender knew better than to trust appearances. He'd learned that lesson years ago, the first time Pete had apologized for hitting him and then done it again the very next night.
He crept to the bedroom, closed the door, and pulled the ticket from his shoe. The paper was crumpled, damp with sweat, but the words were still legible. Salt Lake City. One way. The date printed on the stub was three days from now.
Ender folded it carefully and tucked it into his wallet—the old one, the one Pete didn't know about, the one he kept hidden in the lining of his winter coat. Then he shoved the coat back into the closet and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
The water stain was still there. The hand-shaped shadow. It seemed to be reaching for him, fingers splayed, palm open.
He closed his eyes and tried not to think about anything at all.
---
Monday came like a blade.
Ender woke before dawn, his body aching from a night of restless sleep. Pete was already up—the smell of coffee and cigarette smoke drifting from the kitchen, the sound of the TV muttering in the living room.
He shuffled to the bathroom, avoiding his reflection, and turned on the shower. The water was cold at first, then lukewarm, never quite hot enough to wash away the feeling of dread that clung to him like a second skin.
He dressed in his work clothes—black slacks, white button-down, the apron Marisol had given him—and made his way to the kitchen.
Pete didn't look up. "You work today?"
"Double shift."
"Good. I need money."
Ender poured himself a glass of tap water. "I get paid tonight. I'll bring it home."
Pete grunted. Took a long drag of his cigarette. The smoke curled toward the ceiling, twisting in the fluorescent light like something alive.
"I'm going out later," Pete said. "Might not be back till late."
Ender's heart clenched. "Okay."
"Don't wait up."
"I won't."
Pete looked at him then—really looked—and for a moment Ender felt his gaze like a surgical instrument probing a wound. Then Pete snorted and turned back to his phone.
"Fucking loser," he mumbled.
Ender didn't respond. He just finished his water, set the glass in the sink, and walked out the door.
---
The diner was chaos from the moment Ender clocked in.
Marisol had called in sick, which meant he was covering the floor alone—ten tables, two coffee pots, and a line cook who couldn't remember what medium-rare meant. He worked through the breakfast rush on autopilot, smiling at customers, refilling cups, balancing plates on his forearms like he'd been born to carry other people's burdens.
By noon, he was sweating through his shirt. By two, his feet were throbbing. By four, he'd forgotten what it felt like to stand still.
But the whole time, his mind was elsewhere.
He thought about the ticket, folded and safe in his apron pocket. He thought about the bus station, two blocks from the diner, and the bus that would leave tomorrow morning at six. He thought about how he'd have to work tonight, finish his shift, collect his paycheck, and somehow get home without Pete seeing it.
Then he'd have to wait.
Wait for Pete to drink himself into a stupor. Wait for the apartment to go quiet, for the snoring to start, for the world to settle into that eerie silence of a place where only one person was awake.
Then he'd get up.
He'd gather his things—his birth certificate, his social security card, the clothes he'd packed in the back of the closet. He'd grab his wallet, his extra glasses, his contacts. He'd leave his wedding ring on the table, along with his keys and his phone.
And he'd walk out the door.
The plan was simple. It was also terrifying.
But Ender had been terrified before. He'd been terrified every night for the past five years—every time Pete came home drunk, every time Marcus showed up unannounced, every time he looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the man staring back.
Fear wasn't new. It wasn't even interesting anymore.
What was new was hope.
---
He got home at eight-fifteen.
The apartment was dark.
Ender's hand froze on the doorknob. He'd expected Pete to be at the bar, maybe, or passed out on the couch—anything but waiting in silence like a predator in the dark.
He stepped inside, closed the door behind him.
The click of the lock echoed through the apartment like a gunshot.
"You're late." Pete's voice came from the armchair by the window. His green eyes caught the light from the streetlamp outside, glinting like a cat's.
"I had to finish closing."
"Bullshit."
"It's not bullshit. We were short-staffed today."
Pete rose from the chair. His footsteps traveled across the room, slow and measured, and Ender felt the floorboards trembling beneath his feet.
"Where's your paycheck?"
Ender's hand tightened on his bag. "I have it."
"Give it to me."
He handed over the envelope. Pete tore it open, looked at the numbers, and laughed—a short, ugly sound.
"Four hundred and twelve dollars. That's it?"
"Double shifts don't pay double. It's—"
"I know you're picking up shifts." Pete stepped closer. His breath was hot and sour, and Ender could see the veins bulging in his neck. "I know you're working more hours than you're telling me. What are you hiding?"
"Nothing." Ender's voice was steady, even as his heart hammered against his ribs. "I'm just trying to make ends meet."
Pete's fist connected with his jaw before he even saw it coming.
Ender staggered backward, his hip slamming into the edge of the kitchen counter. Pain exploded in his face, white and sharp, and he tasted copper on his tongue.
"You think I'm stupid?" Pete was on him now, one hand fisted in Ender's shirt, the other raised for another blow. "You think I don't know when my husband is lying to me?"
"I'm not—"
The second punch landed in his stomach.
Ender doubled over, gasping, and Pete shoved him to the floor. The linoleum was cold against his cheek, and he could hear Pete's breathing—ragged, furious, the breathing of a man who'd lost control.
"You're pathetic," Pete spat. "You're nothing without me. You hear me? Nothing."
He kicked Ender in the ribs. Once. Twice. A third time for good measure.
Ender curled into a ball and didn't scream. He'd learned long ago that screaming only made it worse.
---
When it was over, Pete yanked him up by his hair and shoved him toward the bedroom.
"I'm going out," he said. His voice was calm now—the storm had passed, leaving only the wreckage. "When I get back, you better have cleaned yourself up. You look like shit."
The door slammed behind him. The lock clicked. And then there was silence.
Ender lay on the bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling. The water stain was there, of course—the hand, the fingers, the palm. It seemed to be mocking him now.
You're nothing.
He closed his eyes.
---
He woke to the sound of the front door opening.
The clock on the nightstand said 2:47 AM. The apartment reeked of whiskey and stale smoke, and Ender could hear Pete stumbling through the living room, knocking into furniture, cursing under his breath.
He lay still. Forced his breathing to stay slow and even. Waited.
The bedroom door creaked open. Pete's silhouette loomed in the doorway like a shadow made flesh. He stood there for a long moment, swaying slightly, and Ender's heart pounded so loudly he was sure Pete could hear it.
But then—footsteps retreating.
The couch groaned under Pete's weight. There was a thud, a muttered curse, and then silence.
Ender counted to sixty. Then to a hundred. Then to two hundred.
Pete's snoring filled the apartment.
He sat up.
His body screamed in protest. His ribs ached with every breath, his jaw throbbed where Pete had hit him, and there was a sharp pain in his lower back that made it hard to stand. But he stood anyway.
He had to.
He moved through the apartment like a ghost—silent, careful, every step deliberate. The bathroom first. He grabbed his toothbrush, his contacts, the spare pair of glasses he kept hidden behind the medicine cabinet mirror.
The bedroom next. His birth certificate and social security card were in a shoebox at the back of the closet, buried under old sweaters. He pulled them out, checked them twice.
Then he packed.
Three pairs of jeans. Four shirts. Two pairs of underwear. A jacket. His winter coat, the one with the ticket hidden in the lining. Everything fit into the old duffel bag he'd kept from his college days—the only thing he had left from before Pete.
He checked the living room. Pete was sprawled across the couch, one arm dangling toward the floor, his mouth open, his snores ragged and deep. The whiskey bottle was empty on the coffee table. His phone was on the floor, screen cracked.
Ender watched him for a long moment and started to walk away. Then he stopped.
The wallet.
Pete had taken Ender's wallet three months ago. Had hidden it somewhere Ender had never been able to find—some petty act of control, some way of reminding him that nothing he owned was truly his.
But now, with Pete passed out and the apartment dark, Ender could look.
He started with the kitchen drawers. Nothing. The living room shelves. Nothing. The bedroom closet. Nothing.
Then he tried the junk drawer, the one Pete never cleaned out, the one stuffed with old receipts and broken pens and random detritus from years of neglect.
The wallet was at the very back, buried under a pile of old lottery tickets.
Ender pulled it out. His hands were shaking as he opened it—his ID, his debit card, the fifty dollars he'd hidden months ago. Everything was still there.
He didn't cry. He'd promised himself he wouldn't cry.
He just pocketed the wallet and went back to the bedroom.
The last thing he took was his wedding ring.
It sat on the nightstand where he'd left it three days ago, after a fight that had left him with a split lip. The gold band gleamed in the dim light, cold and heavy with promise, and Ender looked at it for a long time before dropping it into his pocket.
He wasn't going to leave it.
He was going to leave it behind.
---
The dining room table was bare except for a few scattered crumbs.
Ender set the ring down first. It made a small, dull sound against the wood—a sound like punctuation, like the end of a sentence.
Then the keys. The apartment key, the mailbox key, the key to the storage unit Pete had rented and never used. He laid them beside the ring, one by one.
Then his phone.
He had a moment of hesitation. If Pete woke up and found him gone, he'd call. He'd text. He'd probably try to track the phone, though Ender doubted he was tech-savvy enough for that.
But leaving it felt like cutting a cord. Like severing the last link between the man he'd been and the man he was becoming. So he placed it on the table, screen dark, and stepped back.
The apartment was quiet.
Ender stood there, in the dark, looking at the three items on the table—the ring, the keys, the phone. They were all that remained of a life he'd built by accident, a life he'd been too afraid to leave.
Not anymore.
He picked up his duffel bag and walked to the door.
He didn't look back.
---
The walk to the diner took forty-five minutes.
Ender moved through the streets like a man in a dream. The city was quiet at this hour—just a few cars, a few early-morning joggers, a few streetlights casting pools of yellow on the pavement. His ribs ached. His jaw throbbed. His legs were trembling with exhaustion.
But he didn't stop.
The diner was dark when he arrived. He used his key to let himself in, flipped on the lights, and started the coffee maker. The familiar smell of roasted beans filled the air, and for the first time in days, Ender felt something like calm.
He went to the back room and took off his coat. Then he reached into the lining and pulled out the ticket.
It was still there. Salt Lake City. One way.
He looked at it for a long moment, then tucked it into his apron pocket.
He worked the morning shift like nothing had changed. He poured coffee and took orders and smiled at customers. He wiped down tables and refilled ketchup bottles and dropped a plate that shattered on the floor.
He picked up the pieces, threw them away, and kept working.
At three o'clock, Marisol came in with her daughter. She looked tired and pale, and Ender remembered that she'd been sick yesterday.
"Feeling better?"
She shrugged. "Better enough."
She paused, her gaze drifting to his face, to the bruise blooming below his jaw, to the way he held his ribs when he moved. She didn't say anything. She just handed him a cup of coffee and walked away.
At four o'clock, Ender clocked out.
He collected his paycheck from the register—four hundred and twelve dollars, the same as last week. He folded it carefully and slipped it into his pocket, on top of the fifty from the ticket.
Then he walked to the bus station.
---
The waiting room smelled like coffee and floor wax.
Ender sat in the corner, duffel bag between his feet, watching the clock on the wall. The bus wasn't scheduled to leave until six—two hours of sitting, of waiting, of trying not to think about what would happen if Pete woke up and found him gone.
He pulled out the ticket and looked at it. The words were small and precise, printed in black ink on cheap paper.
Salt Lake City. One way.
He didn't know what waited for him there. He didn't know if Josh would take him in, if he'd find a job, if he'd be able to rebuild the life Pete had spent five years tearing apart.
He didn't know anything.
For the first time in years, he was okay with that.
---
The bus arrived at 5:47.
Ender stood and picked up his bag. He walked to the gate, handed his ticket to the driver, and stepped onto the bus.
The seats were worn and faded. The air smelled like exhaust and old upholstery. A few other passengers were scattered through the cabin, heads bowed over phones, eyes closed, earbuds in.
Ender found a seat by the window and sat down.
He looked out at the station, at the few people waiting on the platform, at the night sky just starting to pale toward dawn. He thought about Pete, passed out on the couch. He thought about the ring on the dining room table. He thought about the water stain shaped like a hand, reaching down from the ceiling.
He didn't want to see any of it again.
The bus pulled out of the station at 6:02.
Ender watched the city slide past the window—the diner, the pawn shop, the apartment building where he'd spent five years of his life. He watched it shrink in the distance, watched it disappear behind a curve in the road.
Then he closed his eyes.
And for the first time in years, he slept.