"There's something I need to tell you." She was sitting on the couch across the room, wrapped in sofa. There was a chill in the summer night.

I looked at her briefly before staring out at the city skyline. Brilliant oranges and reds began to press back the purpling hues of the sleepless night. It was the first sunrise I had seen all summer.

"What is it?" Walking back from the window and sitting nearby. My hand absent-mindedly checked my phone. Hoping someone had good news.

"I don't..." she pressed her lips together. A feeble, attempt to dam a message already loosed. "I don't think I can forgive him for this."

My eyes avoided hers. "Everyone makes mistakes." My words as vain as her pause. A half-hearted attempt to apologize for wrongs not my own.

The television was on. Filling the room with an almost unnoticed cacophony. She pretended to be watching. I politely did the same.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"Helping me look for him."

"He's my friend too."

We both checked our phones. Nobody had found him yet. One of them had finally shown up at home, his roommate told him. But the other was still out there in the city.

"There's something else." My curiosity drove my eyes. Hers were teary. "I've felt like we've been growing apart lately. He's changed. He's not the same man I met a year ago."

"People change," I looked away, again at my phone. "Sometimes."

"But that's just it. We've been drifting apart for a while. But you and I..."

My eyes closed. I prayed that my ears would follow suit.

She continued. "I don't know if I love him anymore."

Rubbing my wetting eyes. Thinking back on the night. Running into hospitals, scouring the city for him. My hand tightly holding hers, a silent promise that I would do everything I could to bring him back safe.

A promise I hadn't kept.

"I'm sorry," the voice saying it was not my own. "I couldn't do that to him," the lips moved not to the words, but in harmony with hers. Holding her in my arms. Telling her everything would be alright. Making new promises.

"He's the one girls fall for, not the one they stay for."

I don't know which one of us said it. If it was even said at all.

The television seemed to grow louder as the day brightened.

The door behind us opened.

He stumbled in. Clothes torn, bloody. Bleary-eyed and sober. Or at least enough to look guilty.

She crossed the room as he started to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. "I'm glad you're okay." And before he could apologize, she turned and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

He looked up at me for an instant before heading down the hall into his room. After a minute I picked up my coffee and followed him. What was left of his shirt was already on the floor, replaced with a bath towel slung over one shoulder. He was undoing his belt as I walked in.

"I think you need this more than I do," offering him the mug.

"Thanks," he said before draining the lukewarm liquid.

"How'd you get back?"

"I walked."

"How far?"

"Almost two miles."

"Wallet?"

"Don't know."

I nodded.

"Thanks," he said. Handing me back the empty mug. "Do you know where my cell phone is?"

"On your desk. Adam got a hold of it somehow."

"How's he?"

"Safe."

"Okay. I'm going to cleanup."

"Okay," I went back to my room. By this time, the sun was already up, a relentless glare. Closing the blinds blocked the worst, but the light still seeped in between the slats. Settling for dusk, I collapsed onto my bed, still fully clothed. Sleep clawed at my mind as replayed the conversation over and over again.