Atlaan was no longer hot, but so cold that light snowflakes fell from the sky. It was almost 110 degrees Farinheight the day before yesterday, 70 the day before, and now the entire landscape was covered in a thin veil of snow, as the suns would not rise for another 32 hours.

Ace knocked on the door and waited patiently for Sierra to answer.

No answer.

He rubbed his hands together and shivered in the dark waiting patiently, knocking over and over, but still no answer. Chewie’s barks could be heard through the door, excited at the prospect of a visitor.

Ace was going to get Sierra to talk to him one way or another. He was tired of waiting outside and simply closed his eyes, and opened them again standing in her blue and yellow kitchen.

Chewie jumped up and down and barked as he smelled Ace. His tail wagged, a happy yellow blur in the dark. Ace flipped the switch on and grinned.

“I’ve missed you Chewie! Have you been good?”

He kneeled down to hug him and Chewie barked louder and louder wiggling all over him. Ace had never missed someone so much in his entire life. Chewie loved him unconditionally, no matter his choices, and Ace wanted someone who wouldn’t judge him if they knew what he did.

Sierra ran down the stairs in a pink shirt and her yellow boy shorts, down the hallway and into the kitchen, gun in hand. Ace held his hands up in surprise and Sierra jerked her hand away before she shot him.

“Ace, what the fuck, ” she screamed. “It's so late! Why didn’t you call?”

“I forgot,” he said quietly.

“Ace, you can’t do this… tomorrow is the Night of Sin! I thought some idiot who took this stuff too seriously broke in.”

“ The truth is, I came because I wanted to talk about Candice," replied Ace. “I want to stop lying to you and myself."

Sierra sighed and sat at the table. Her head lay on the cold wooden table and she groaned.

“This is what you came so late to talk to me about,” Sierra asked. “The girl Amy told me about?”

“Yeah...”

Ace sat across from her from the table and put his hands in his pocket. Next, he put them on the table, and then in his lap, all of a sudden unsure what to do with his body or even how to breathe.

Sierra glared at him from across the table holding the pistol in her right hand. She then got up, put it on the green kitchen counter, and sat back at the table, because she knew that crimes of passion always started with arguments.

She was also worried that she had scared him.

He always had this look of fear in his eyes of her sometimes, and she never understood why.

“What’s wrong? Why can’t this wait until later,” Sierra asked.

“Candice isn’t some girl I’m seeing," mumbled Ace. “She’s dead.”

Chewie paced up and down the kitchen tile, feeling the tense atmosphere. He didn’t like it when they fought. He didn’t know what to do. He walked into the living room, sat on the couch, and sulked.

“What, Candice is your dead girlfriend or something," taunted Sierra. “I’m supposed to believe this TV drama nonsense?”

“I knew you’d say something like that...”

“What does this have to do with me," asked Sierra. “I never knew her."

“I’m glad you didn’t," he replied.

She scratched her head, sighed, and quietly told him to leave.

“I don’t want to see you anymore,” she said.

“But we’re friends.”

“Friendships end.”

“No, they don’t.”

Sierra held her hand out and made the same motion she always did as if something in front of her was dirty, that she had to wash it off but couldn’t, and stood up from the chair.

“If you were someone else I would have exercised my rights already,” Sierra sighed.

“But you haven’t, because we’re friends.”

“No, we’re not!”

She went up to her cabinet, stood on her toes, and got herself a drink from the sink. Sierra turned to look at him, shaking her head.

“Ace I love you, but I don’t love the things you do.”

“I should have told you the truth,” he replied.

“No, we should have never been together.”

She blinked rapidly, and suddenly she felt cold, no socks on even and she didn’t want him there, because he made her feel that she wasn’t enough for him.

“Do you know how I felt when that girl showed me a picture on her phone from a few years ago? All of you, at some event?”

Ace looked at the table, hanging his head in shame.

“I’m the no-name brand box you got at the store when your favorite cereal ran out.”

Sierra was disappointed to see that just as Amy said, she looked just like her.

Candice was short, just like her. She had the same mocha brown skin and big eyes. Her hair was long and black, but Sierra’s was brown. They had the same eye color and even the same body type. Sierra felt like something had been taken from her and turned into something new.

Something gross.

The lights in the room felt brighter and the buzz of the refrigerator was so much louder when she looked at all the pictures of Candice. The holidays they spent together, the dates, the high school events. Her head buzzed as she realized that she and Ace were never truly together, that she was the replacement.

She was waiting for him to say something back, but he didn’t say anything, so she continued.

“You came here expecting me to forgive you, but I won’t. I feel sorry for you though.”

“There’s nothing to feel sorry for,” he screamed.

“Yes, there is! You’re dating a married guy because you know it won’t work out!”

“He left her!”

Sierra squeezed her small plastic green cup and clicked her tongue.

“I have a confession,” she sighed.

Ace leaned in his curved ears twitching because now he wouldn’t be the bad guy.

“I thought he’d leave and we would get back together, and I’m no better...and now, I see that…”

“You’re not a bad person. We’re not bad people,” Ace replied.

“What makes you so sure?”

“We’re cops...”

His voice faltered as she walked across the kitchen to him and he felt small underneath her gaze.

He remembered why he loved her because she would hold him tight, she would make him melt, soft, her citrus scent, and he would feel small, yet somehow in a good way he liked, a way he could not explain.

This time was not like the others.

“I’m so sorry Sierra, I don’t want you to hate me.”

Little tears fell from Sierra’s face and she tried to be brave but she couldn’t. Sierra sniffled and wiped her tears away using the bottom half of her shirt, and was so upset because he took it away from her.

He took away her chance to be angry, to yell and shout, because he came to her first.

“This isn’t fair Ace,” she cried.

Snot dripped down his nose as he shed a few tears as well and tried to hold it together.

“You need to get help. ”

“I already did. They made us talk to a professional so we could be approved before we came back for work."

“So go back!”

“I hated it. I went for the minimum required sessions, I talked about our relationship, but it didn’t matter," explained Ace.

“How could it not?”

“I told him about the things she did," said Ace. “I was embarrassed to admit that she made me sleep with her before I wanted to, but he told me I was having survivor’s guilt."

Sierra felt uncomfortable at the sudden turn of conversation. That someone who held any resemblance to her would do something like that, and Ace would chase after that.

Like self-harm but easier to hide, Sierra thought.

“I thought, I thought that dating you would help me move on,” Ace admitted.

“I’m not her. I can’t be her. I will never want to be her,” Sierra clarified.

“Yes but—”

“You can’t hurt me and think it's okay because someone else hurt you,” Sierra screamed. “I’m not her!”

Ace opened his mouth to make a snarky retort but then he remembered what Levi said earlier.

You can’t hurt other people because someone hurt you.

“Get out,” Sierra said.

“I want my dog,” Ace said quietly.

“ Get out!”

She turned red in the face, she screamed, her entire body trembled, and Ace jumped out of his chair. The same face of anger he’d seen on Candice was now on Sierra’s and he couldn’t handle it.

In the blink of an eye, he left.

Sierra sat at the table, cried, and laid her head onto it, blaming herself.

Her cries were deep and heavy, and she continued for quite some time as Chewie entered the kitchen and tried to love her as best as he could, rubbing up against her leg with his furry golden body.

She stopped crying because the dog was now crying, and she didn’t want him to feel that bad.

She told herself it needed someone stable for the first time in its life.