15
I was at Horvak’s apartment in the Haight, a couple of blocks from Golden Gate Park, on Waller. It was late, and I was there alone. Everything was quiet.
Horvak had caught a flight to Aspen a few hours earlier. We’d passed each other in the sky. Horvak was in an idyllic mountain paradise, celebrating the holidays with family and friends. I was alone in San Francisco, waiting for a funeral. A defeated brand of envy was the only natural response.
Horvak didn’t really know Amanda. He knew her peripherally through me, but he didn’t know her well enough to mourn her. Nothing about her death was debilitating to him; none of it really affected him. Beyond the kind of standard empathy that occurs in decent people, nothing much would transpire within him on account of her passing. There would be no resonant impact. He would escape unharmed.
I’d
