Selena tried very hard to not cry. It is quite hard to explain to people that there is no actual concrete reason for why you have suddenly burst into tears and she was becoming tired of having to go through this dance with random passers-by, co-workers and even members of her family. The thing was even if she could get people to understand that she was just generally unhappy and ‘thing x’ or ‘happening y’ had just somehow pushed her over the edge emotionally, they would still try to comfort her or fix it, or both. This was not actually helpful, because it made her focus on her sadness. What she needed more than anything was to be distracted.

Anyway, in that moment there was nothing she could do but choke back the tears, holster her gun and try to help her partner getting the perp into the back of the car. She tried to turn her eyes away from the little girl sitting in the gutter who was cradling a dead puppy in her arms – this was what had almost made her weep, though she did not know why it hit her so hard.