Chap­ter 2 begins with a jolt—one that leaves me star­tled on the wet pave­ment, Bear’s leash tug­ging insis­tent­ly in my hand as the sharp scent of rain and engine oil fills the air. The sleek car, now creased and steam­ing near the curb, looms in my periph­er­al vision. Chap­ter 2 forces me to meet the eyes of the man who caused it all—Alex, as he lat­er intro­duces himself—removing his sun­glass­es to reveal a con­cerned expres­sion that seems sur­pris­ing­ly sin­cere, espe­cial­ly giv­en the cir­cum­stances.

He kneels down slight­ly to gauge if I’m injured, the driz­zle cling­ing to both our clothes. I feel the grit of wet grav­el on my palms as I get up, and there’s an odd mix of shame and shock tight­en­ing in my chest. “I’m okay,” I man­age to say, my voice thin, damp­ened by the moment. He reas­sures me, empha­siz­ing that it’s just a car—his words calm, but his side­long glance at the dam­age betrays the sting of loss beneath his calm exte­ri­or.

The irony of the sit­u­a­tion isn’t lost on me—he’s the one with a six-fig­ure car now bent out of shape, yet he’s the one ask­ing if I’m all right. As we speak, I notice his coat—clean lines, qual­i­ty fab­ric, no label show­ing but clear­ly expensive—and how it con­trasts with my wet jeans and thrift­ed jack­et. Thorn­field Estates men have a cer­tain look: pol­ished, delib­er­ate, and dis­tant. But Alex’s demeanor is some­thing else entire­ly. There’s warmth in his voice, even as he apol­o­gizes again, as though he’s the one who’d wronged me.

Bear remains close to my leg, his ear­li­er bark­ing now replaced with a low, steady breath. I won­der if dogs can detect class dif­fer­ences, or if he’s just unset­tled by the ten­sion. Alex offers to cov­er any med­ical costs if I need to be seen, and when I wave him off, he nods, not press­ing the issue. There’s a pause before he speaks again, “Just don’t hes­i­tate if some­thing changes. I mean that.”

The words linger after he says them. He doesn’t give me a card or a num­ber, which should make the ges­ture feel hol­low, but some­how it doesn’t. It felt real—an offer meant to stand on prin­ci­ple more than logis­tics. Then he returns to his car, now hum­ming uneven­ly as it pulls away, leav­ing a thin trail of mist behind the tires, and I’m left in the fog­gy qui­et of a post-acci­dent moment.

Walk­ing Bear back through the drip­ping side­walks of Moun­tain Brook Vil­lage, I catch my reflec­tion in a shop win­dow. Wet hair, dirt on my knees, and a look I bare­ly rec­og­nize. Yet, in the strange way fate works, I had shared an unguard­ed moment with some­one from a world that doesn’t usu­al­ly see peo­ple like me unless we’re deliv­er­ing gro­ceries or trim­ming hedges. Chap­ter 2 blurs those lines, if only for a few short min­utes.

Back at my apart­ment, the damp­ness clings to me like a sec­ond skin, but the encounter replays in loops. I search “Alex Thorn­field Estates” just out of curios­i­ty, and noth­ing obvi­ous comes up. I don’t even know if he’s one of the long-time res­i­dents or some­one just pass­ing through, maybe stay­ing with a friend. That’s the thing about places like Thornfield—they have so much sur­face gloss that it hides every seam.

Bear snoozes near my feet as I sip a mug of reheat­ed cof­fee, think­ing how sur­re­al it was to be asked, gen­uine­ly asked, if I was all right by some­one who could buy my entire life ten times over. It makes me won­der if there’s more to these peo­ple than priv­i­lege and per­for­mance. Maybe not all of them are so dif­fer­ent after all. Still, the sub­tle pow­er imbal­ance of the whole moment doesn’t escape me.

As I look out the win­dow, past the rain-streaked glass, the cars pass by with­out pause. Some­where out there, Alex is prob­a­bly explain­ing the dent­ed hood to a mechan­ic or his insur­ance agent, maybe even laugh­ing it off at din­ner tonight. But I’ll remem­ber it dif­fer­ent­ly. Chap­ter 2 reminds me that Thorn­field Estates isn’t just a place of old mon­ey and man­i­cured perfection—it’s a place where lives touch, even if only for a fleet­ing, acci­den­tal moment.