The divorce papers were signed on a Thursday.

In Atlanta, it was still Wednesday night.

Amanda checked into a hotel that smelled like citrus.

She didn't cry. She didn't order room service. She just stood by the window in her oversized Ankara scarf and watched the city glimmer,

daring herself to feel something. Nothing came. So she put on her sneakers. I'm just going for a walk,

she told no one. Downtown was quieter than expected. Glass buildings, reflections, the hum of things

happening elsewhere. She wandered past a bakery, a silent train

station, an alley that looked like it belonged in a dream. Then she saw it, a tunnel. No sign, no

explanation, just a curved mouth of shadow between two closed storefronts.

She stepped in. It wasn't fear that pulled her forward. It was the nothingness. She'd spent a decade folding herself into another person's version of a wife.

When it finally ended, there was no explosion, just static.

So the tunnel didn't scare her.

It felt familiar.

Dim, cool, quiet. But halfway through, she heard it.

Music. A throb of bass, laughter, lush voices, a faint flicker of neon. When she emerged, it was into a soft red glow.

Above her, a wooden sign with a carved crescent moon in the words, Eve's Garden. She blinked. The tunnel was gone. Inside, it smelled like whiskey and cinnamon. Bodies moved like water in the half dark. Women in crop tops,

denim, leather jackets, sun dresses, locks, bald heads, bright eyeliner.

It wasn't a club. It was something older. Stranger. Like a spell. She sat at the bar. You lost? Asked the bartender. A woman with silver rings on every finger.

No, Amanda said, surprising herself. She drank something peach-colored and fizzy.

She laughed when a woman with gold teeth said she liked Amanda's scarf.

She danced slowly, like she was remembering how.

Then a woman in green approached, tall with tired eyes and a voice like a cello string.

...