Together, or Nobody

In the summer of 2005, seven-year-old Elena Reyes wades into a filthy ditch beside the railway tracks to rescue a pair of sneakers belonging to a boy she has never spoken to.

Marcus Hale never forgets it. Growing up as "track kids" in the shadow of Gary's dying steel mills, they carve "M + E" into the sycamore on Taney Street and swear to escape together or not at all.

They make it to Chicago with nothing but each other. Then, as the money and the pressure grow, each makes the same secret sacrifice for the other, and two phones on one December night destroy everything.

Four and a half years later, Marcus stands under the old tree with Elena's number glowing in his hand, and one choice left to make.