“Saved me?” Brendan’s glare was grim. The words had taken an absurd quality the moment he had heard them escape Deirdre’s lips. “You saved me? When, might I ask?”

Deirdre pressed her lips shut in despair.

He snickered. “You can’t even save yourself!” he sneered. “For the love of God, don’t ever say something that cringeworthy again. People around you are gonna feel embarrassed on your behalf!”

He let Deirdre go. Now that his booze-addled frustration had found an outlet, there was no reason for him to stay.

She lowered her trembling eyelids. In the darkness, she dreamed of a blurry visage. A child. She had hoped that, should reincarnation be true, it would become her child again, and she would pay the debt she owed. But now, she wondered if it was just a pipe dream after all.

Sam came to visit her the next morning. He noticed the mess, Deirdre’s unmissable fatigue as she lay on her bed, and the telltale signs on her neck and collarbones. It was easy to tell what had happened last