Chapter 1
Maggie
The couch was white.Not cream, not off-white. No, it was stark white, like the teeth of an overachiever or a bridal showroom. It was the kind of couch you only bought if you never planned to eat on it. I perched on the edge of it, afraid I might stain it if I let myself sink all the way in. The cold of the leather seeped through my jeans, as if it resented me for sitting on it.
Eric was wearing matching loungewear. Beige joggers. A beige hoodie. He looked like a man-shaped oat milk latte.
He stood in front of the fireplace that wasn’t even a real fireplace, just a recessed rectangle with a flickering screen that simulated flames. The wall around it was exposed brick, which I’d once found charming but now thought it just looked like a Pinterest board with commitment issues.
“I think,” Eric began, calm and measured like he was reading guided meditation instructions, “we’ve outgrown our emotional ecosystem.”
I stared at him, my lips pressed firmly together. I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth. If I did, I’d either start sobbing or scream, and neither felt worth the energy.
Eric exhaled through his nose, like he was trying to show patience. “You don’t have anything to say?”
My gaze drifted to the fake flames flickering in the fireplace. “I guess I’m trying to figure out what that means,” I said, my voice thinner than I wanted. “Emotional ecosystem? Is that, like, a breakup term you heard on a podcast?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Mags. I’m not trying to make this harder. I’m trying to be honest.”
Honest. Like honesty was some kind of mercy, and he hadn’t been pulling away in tiny, silent ways for months now.
“I need a softer energy in my space,” he added.
I laughed, but it came out wrong—sharp and bitter. “Softer energy? Are you serious?”
His brows lifted, like I’d just proved his point. “This is exactly what I mean. Lately, everything with you is all tension and conflict. I’m exhausted, Maggie. Aren’t you?”
No, I wasn’t. I was heartbroken. There was a difference.
I stared at the pale suede stitching on the throw pillow and thought of all the ways I’d reshaped myself for him, for this relationship. I’d tried being softer. I’d tried being smaller. I had bent myself into the shape of his ideal woman until I forgot what I actually looked like. I had shaved the edges off my personality and filed my voice down to something gentle and agreeable, just so I wouldn’t take up too much room. And now he needed something softer?
I couldn’t win a game where the rules changed every time I got close.
Eric shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “You don’t have to look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m the villain.”
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, willing myself not to cry. “You think because you said it gently, it doesn’t make you the bad guy?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. I could see him weighing his words. Always careful. Always calculated. “This isn’t working anymore. I think we both know it.”
I didn’t answer. What was there to say? That I loved him anyway? That I didn’t want to start over? That I didn’t want to leave this apartment, this life, this version of us that I’d clung to as if it could still be saved?
Still, I didn’t cry. I stood.
“Are you?—?”
“I’ll have my stuff out within the next few days,” I said, brushing invisible lint off my jeans. My voice sounded strange. Flat.
“Maggie—”
But I was already walking toward the bedroom. The cold in the hallway crept under my skin and stayed there.
I closed the door behind me and leaned against it for just a second, trying to calm the thudding of my heart.
The room looked the same as always, perfectly curated like a catalog photo. I crossed to the dresser, trailing my fingers along its surface like I was seeing it for the first time. I picked up a framed photo from last summer during a Fourth of July picnic at the lake. We were barefoot on the grass, my head resting on Eric’s shoulder, fireworks blooming behind us in the dusk. I remembered thinking that we were finally happy that night.
