In PrivateSociety they posted playlists and recipes and photos of unremarkable gardens. Messages came and went. People continued to show up and to leave. Rowan wrote once, "There is a tin under the pier," and someone replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a song recommendation. He felt then how gentleness could be both ritual and reply.

He kept the earring, not because it matched anything he owned but because it was round and cold and simply there. He left the film ticket back in the tin, thinking of cinema dark and heads bowed together. He wrapped the paper in his coat and walked until the stars that sometimes settle over the water felt like punctuation marks on a sentence that did not need to end.