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“Okay, then we’ll just go on, back to business as usual.”

She left the room, as though that settled it.

It should have, I supposed, but for some strange reason, I sat there and reeled, nothing feeling settled, no part of me accepting the sudden change.

I went back to my texts, examining the stupid thing that had ended it all.

Me: What, only 2 of you this time?

They’d taken it as a challenge, which honestly hadn’t been my point. Sometimes I just couldn’t keep the sarcastic, intrusive thoughts to myself, and I’d honestly taken the crack without thinking. I was thinking hard about it now.

I approached her in the kitchen. She was making herself a latte and me a double espresso.

Ever the pro.

I wanted to shake her.

I wanted to beg her on my knees.

“That comment I made, in the text,” I began earnestly, “I can see how that might come across badly, but it wasn’t how it looked. I was just making an ironic statement, and those chicks took it seriously.”

She held up a hand, not even looking at me. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t have hard feelings. I knew who you were the whole time, and frankly, I think I needed this little reminder.”

“It wasn’t—”

“Don’t, Turner. I’m not changing my mind, and I’m not sure why you’d want me to. You have naked pictures of my cousin in your phone. She’s got pictures of your cock in hers. Yes, I saw all of that too. I apologize, it was out of line, but after I saw that text… I looked. I knew you hooked up with her, knew who and what you were from day one. Like I said, I just needed this reminder, and now it is time to move on.”

She didn’t sound even close to approaching mad, but I was getting there.

I supposed this cold reaction was better than tears or a tantrum, but somehow it felt more fundamentally damaging.

For her. For me.

“Those pictures were from months ago,” I told her fake calmly. It was an honest effort not to raise my voice. “Before I even met you.”

“She sent you a picture of her . . . privates,” she blushed bright red as she spoke, “last week.”

“And I didn’t respond!” Now I was raising my voice. “You saw that, right? I didn’t even open it. I can’t control what’s being sent to me!”

“Of course you can’t.” Finally, some spark behind her eyes that spoke of feelings. “Which is my point. I can control things like that. How you live is not how I want to live. Who you are is not who I want to be.” God, that hurt. And she just kept going. “I need to get back to being the kind of person I can respect.” Fucking ouch.

She was so set against me that her rejection felt like a third person in the room between us, and it was fucking brutal.

I just stared at her. How could it be over? It felt to me like it should never be over. How could she think it was over? How could she want it to be over? And what on earth could I even do about it?

The answer was demoralizing. I could do nothing. I had no right to do anything at all, in fact the opposite. I had to respect her wishes, and I was supposed to do it with grace.

“I’ll keep working here,” she told me after a while. I’d been staring at her for quite some time, like if I didn’t move from this spot, this moment, I could somehow fix it. “Cleaning up your messes,” she continued, not unkindly, “and you and l will quickly forget that this mess ever happened.”

But I didn’t forget. Couldn’t.

Couldn’t even muster up the will to try to forget or move on.

How sad was that?

I caught her quietly moving her things out of my room that afternoon and almost lost it. I sat on my bed and watched her go in and out of my closet and bathroom, not lifting a finger to help.

I wasn’t going to help her put me behind her, was incapable of it.