"Lu, I'm in so much pain," I croak, stumbling on the edge of the bathtub. My head drops down.
"I know." She slips the scissors from my hand and sets them on the sink like she's disarming me. I let out an ugly, wet snort of laughter, which is definitely not giving me any relief.
Lu looks at me, and her expression suddenly weighted. "Em, it was Ben who called me."
I blink at her, then frown. "What do you mean? When?"
"That night. After your fight. That's why I rang you."
Everything in me stops cold. "What do you mean? Why would he call you?"
She shrugs. "I don't know where he got my number, but he apologized for calling so late and said he was scared something was going to happen to you. He saw you sitting at Sea Cliff. Apparently, he sees your location on his phone—"
"Oh shit."The app. He knows where I am. All this time, I thought I regained some agency, but he can literally see each of my moves.
"I have to deactivate that," I say, ready to rush out of the bathroom and do it now, but Lu grabs me, staining my arm in a purple dye.
"Wait," she says, her eyes soft but insistent.
"I think he really loves you," she says again.
I blink and frown at how serious she sounds.
"When he called me, he didn't sugarcoat it," she continues. "Told me everything. Said I should hex him, that he feels like absolute shit for hurting you. That if you never forgive him, I should take care of you and support you during your divorce, not let Richard play with you. That if you need any money, he'll send it to me. Hereallyloves you, Em."
I sink back on the bathtub edge, hands over my face to stop the sob from breaking loose. "I know. I know he does, but does it even matter?"
She tucks a falling strand of my hair behind my ear.
"You know he wasn't double-dipping, because he invited you into his world, wanted you in his family—he even got two apartments for you guys," she says slowly. "And he told you he didn't sleep with her after you guys started. You can't hold it against him that he was just living his life."
"I know. He did so many things right. That's the problem. He was perfect," I say, my voice splintering.
"Life's not neat. Look at me—" Lu points at the door ajar, listening to the laugh behind it. "Never thought I'd end up with Sophia sketching Micah's balls in my kitchen, but hey, you adjust, you make it work."
I've really hit rock bottom when I can't even laugh about that.
I drag in a breath. "That's the worst part. I know he didn't lie, even though my thoughts scream that he wronged me—deep down I feel like he didn't, not this time... Then I start wondering—" I get up, my shoulder slumping on the tile and Iknow I sound humiliatingly earnest, "—if I can forgive him. If I could get over it."
Lu's eyes pin mine in the mirror—like she already knows something I don't.
"And? Could you?"
I don't answer. Because what is there to answer when you're fumigated by peroxide and grief at the same time? Too much to handle.
Instead, I manage to carve her hair into a purple pixie cut and listen to their laughter echoing down the hall like a carnival when their sexy ménage à trois leaves.
I'm once again left with my anxieties, back in my old room.
Everything is almost the same because when I left for Seattle I didn't take anything, and coming back, it would not match Richard's sophisticated apartment.
Plus, I wanted it here, safe with Lu.
There's that desk where I wrote my first book when I didn't have the world in my head to tell me what should come next and I'm on the same white-metal queen bed that squeaks with every breath, where I dreamed I'd marry, build a life, unfold into someone new.
I did all those things, and somehow ended in the same place—somehow better, because I've lived, but mostly worse, because I've looped. I'm looping in a loop inside another loop.
Knees against my chest, I watch the night fall through the window.
