"Yeah," Andrea says, then laughs, her nose wrinkling a little. This is why she feels like that loop wasn't arbitrary, it was something she'd needed even though she hadn't known she'd needed it at the time. Now that it's happened, she feels better, like things have settled. Maybe it won't last long, but she'll take it for now.

"He met Dale, which was weird, but it was like Dale's way of telling me it was okay," she adds, looking down at her coffee briefly. He's been dead for almost three years now, she thinks, and it's okay for her to move on. She knows that now.