Sydney heard the woman scream in the alley. Her boyfriend said it was more of a yelp than a
scream. He told her to calm down. But how do you calm down when you hear someone being
hurt? While they bickered over the meaning of words, Sydney heard a man call the woman a
bitch, the woman cry as if struck, the man tell the woman to get up and stop causing a scene, the
woman say ‘ow,’ weakly, then silence. By the time Sydney got to the window, there was no
woman in the alley, no man, no evidence of a crime, nothing to call the police about. By the time
Sydney got to the window, she knew her boyfriend wasn’t the one, that this would be their last
night together, perhaps her last night with anyone. By the time Sydney got to the window, she
knew that the price of being right is often being alone.