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But none of them are true.

Another vibration rattles through the phone, and something in me snaps. Before I can think better of it, I hurl the phone across the room.

It slams into the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the drywall before crashing onto the dresser. Plastic explodes across the floor. The screen splinters into a web of fractured glass. It flickers once, then goes black.

I stare at the broken pieces scattered across the carpet, my chest rising and falling with breaths that come too hard. For one wild second, I expect to feel relief.

No more calls.

No more messages.

No more tethers to a life I no longer have.

But that relief never comes.

The bottle is empty when I lift it again, but I tip it toward my mouth anyway, waiting for one last drop that never comes.

“Story of my life.” The words come out somewhere between a laugh and a breath.

Raven would tell me I’m being dramatic.

She’d lean against the doorway with her hair still damp from the shower, the soft scent of her black vanilla shampoo following her into the room, and smile like she already knew exactly what was wrong before I opened my mouth.

She always knew.

Most of the time before I did.

I close my eyes, and for a second I can see her so clearly. She’s standing in our bedroom in one of my old shirts, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs. Her hair is a darker honey shade when it’s wet. She lifts one eyebrow when she catches me staring.

"What?" she asks, tilting her head just enough that a strand of damp hair slips over her shoulder.

"Nothing," I tell her.

"That isn't your nothing face."

I can't help smiling. "I don't have a nothing face."

She laughs, crossing the room until she's standing in front of me. "You absolutely do."

"I don't."

"You do," she insists, reaching up to smooth a hand through my hair. "It's the face you make when you're pretending everything's fine because you think you have to fix it before you can talk about it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Mm-hmm." She smiles, looking entirely too pleased with herself. "That's your other nothing face."

She climbs onto my lap, knees braced on either side of my legs, settling her weight against me like she’s got nowhere else in the world she’d rather be. Her hands slide up my chest, slow and deliberate. Stopping to curl inside the collar of my shirt.

“There,” she murmurs, close enough now that I can feel her breath against my jaw. “The view is much better from here.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You love impossible.” Her mouth brushes my ear, and I feel her smile against my skin. “You married impossible.”

My hands find her hips on instinct, thumbs pressing into the curve of her waist, and she rocks forward just slightly. She’s testing me, watching my face for the reaction she already knows she’s going to get.

“Rae—”