and my feet on the accelerator had no problems. Even so, I drove carefully down the wet roads glimmering in the morning light at around 40 kilometers an hour. There was something I wanted to tell the girl. But I didn’t know how to break the subject. I arrived at the destination while my earlymorning brain was still thinking things over. “That bus stop is fine,” she pointed. “Let me off here.” I stopped the car, but also stopped the girl as she tried to open the passenger door and leave. “Listen, is there anything I can do? I’ll hear out anything. Let me try and make up for my crime.” She didn’t reply. She got onto the sidewalk and started walking away. I left the car and ran after her, grabbing her shoulder. “I really know I’ve done something terrible. I want to make up for it.” “Please, get out of my sight,” she insisted. “Right now.” I hung on. “I’m not expecting your forgiveness. I just want to make you feel the tiniest bit better.” “Why should I have to go along with your self-serving idea of scoring points with me? “Make you feel better?” You just want to feel better, don’t you?” That was a bad way of putting it, I realized too late. Anyone would be insulted to hear that from the person who killed them. I felt like anything more I said would make her angrier. I could only back off for now. “Okay. You seem to want to be alone, so I’ll go poof for now.” I took out a notebook and wrote down my phone number, tore out the page, and gave it to the girl. “If there’s anything you want me to do, call that number and I’ll come running.” “No thanks.” She tore the page to pieces before me. The strips of paper were blown away,