“How are you?” Elena asked.
Daphne had lain down on the dock, staring up at the sky with the phone pressed to her ear.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Bad night?”
“Just…weird. Confusing.”
“Sounds like you need some cinnamon tea,” Elena said softly. “And a bath with those bombs you like. The vetiver ones.”
“Vetiver and wood sage,” Daphne said.
“Yeah,” Elena said. “I still have some.”
“You didn’t throw them out?”
Elena sighed. “I couldn’t.”
Daphne’s eyes stung, and she hated it. She hated how Elena could still do this to her, melt her entire soul and heart with just a few stupid words about bath bombs.
“Why did you break up with me?” she asked. It was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
“Daphne,” Elena said gently.
“Just tell me,” Daphne said. “Please. Was there someone else?”
“No.”
“Right,” Daphne said, laughing mirthlessly. “And how am I supposed to believe you after what you did to April?”
“I never spoke to April again after we split up,” Elena said sharply. “If there was someone else, we wouldn’t be on the phone right now, Daphne.”
Daphne sucked in a breath, a strange mix of disgust and horrible relief.
“Then tell me,” she said, pushing through it.
Elena exhaled loudly. “Honestly?”
Daphne didn’t answer, and Elena was quiet for a long time.
“I don’t know,” Elena said finally. “I felt stuck.Wefelt stuck. And I wasn’t sure what to do about it except blow it all up.”
Daphne let that settle between them, readied herself to say goodbye, but then Elena kept talking.
“I never should have done it. I never should have let you go,” she said.
A whisper. A bomb exploding.
Daphne sat up quickly, her stomach undulating unpleasantly, and she had no idea how to respond.
How she felt.
What she thought.
The words blurred together, and she realized her eyes were filling with tears, and she didn’t understand that either. Elena had put her through hell—her coldness during the last year of their relationship, always denying anything was wrong when Daphne asked, the constant gaslighting, all followed by an abrupt breakup after a beautiful date at Daphne’s favorite restaurant, accompanied with the courtesy of calling Daphne a Lyft once she’d finished packing.
There’d been no conversation.
