The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The protagonist goes back to the coffee shop at 6 to meet the woman for their date. He offers to cook for her at his home and she agrees. As they eat, she tells him about her life. Though her marriage was good at first, it withered. After her husband had an affair, she divorced him, and now cannot trust her emotions with men. After her divorce, she took her money and bought the coffee shop, telling no one where she was going.

The protagonist walks her home in the cold and finds himself remembering his walks home with the girl from the library in the walled-in town. Time and reality blur, and he tells the woman without being specific how he struggles in love, sick of trying again and again, though always feeling like a part of his heart does not work. At her door, he asks her out again and she agrees.

On his walk home, the protagonist is distracted and is surprised to find himself walking to the library. When he arrives, he goes to the subterranean office and finds the woodstove lit. He expects to see