He nodded, purposefully avoiding my eyes.
She took the water glass in one hand and the study book in the other. “I know the library is getting stale, but this really isn’t the time to fall apart.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is there ever a good time?”
We sat down, and she set the water in front of me. “Are you going to tell me what happened? Or should I have just gone for a run?”
I felt tears coming and readjusted the sunglasses.
“I can’t really explain it. I got to the courthouse, and everything was fine. And then they gave me the papers, and then I left ... and then Isawthe papers. And honestly, I don’t think I can live with myself.” My voice broke.
“You ‘saw’ the papers? Aren’t they just standard divorce papers?”
“I mean, I guess ... This is my first divorce, you know.”
I put my head in my hands. “Not that it’s a huge surprise. Both my parents have been married twice.”
“A lot of parents are divorced. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“But theirs was ugly. A total legal marathon.”
She looked around the empty bar. “You can feel better then. This is as ugly as yours gets.”
I pulled out the papers and pointed to the caption. “I have to sendthisto Ben.”
I searched her face for validation, but she was unmoved.
“What am I looking for?”
I felt irrationally frustrated. “How can I file alegaldocument that calls Ben the same fucking thing as someone accused of murder?”
Emilie looked closer, lip-reading the caption. “Oh. Defendant.”
I covered my eyes. “Once was enough.”
She impatiently slid the papers back into the book. “I wasn’t going to repeat it.”
I rested my head on top of my forearm, the wooden table cool against my skin. I could feel her impatience radiating across me.
“Youlefthim. So you’re the plaintiff.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point then? It’s barely five p.m., and you’re drowning in wine. I’m not saying that this isn’t traumatic, but you haven’t even batted an eye until today. I haven’t seen you cry once over this.”
“Right. I don’t think that’s normal. I don’t think I let myself process how bad I feel. I’ve been in denial about ruining someone else’s life.”
She shot me an irritated look. “Listen. It’s not that I don’t think you have a good reason to feel miserable. You’re divorced, you’re pushing thirty, and you’re two weeks away from taking the bar, which might be the worst part if you keep this up. Do I think you could have timed everything better? Yes. I think this whole thing should have taken a back seat to everything else in your life right now. But now you have to be a big girl, send the papers to Ben, and move on. You made the right choicefor you. You can unpack these emotions after you pass the bar.”
I nodded, or at least I think I did. The words blurred in my head—divorced,pushing thirty,move on. She wasn’t wrong. But it suddenly felt like I’d been emotionally stripped bare, as if every nerve in my body had been dragged to the surface.
Chapter Two
Three weeks later, the Amtrak train lurched to a stop as the person in the window seat shoved past me. I instinctively reached for my handbag, then scanned the overhead compartment for the two suitcases that held everything from my old life.
I waded through Penn Station toward the escalator up to Eighth Avenue, the August air hitting like a wet sponge.
I had a week to find an apartment before starting as a first-year associate at Abramson & Klein. Jessica, my college roommate who traveled weekly to Copenhagen for work, offered her pullout couch in Brooklyn until I found a place. Emilie and Connor were separately spending time in Europe before starting their jobs in New York, and the city felt more solitary than I expected.
