“Okay,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Stop. You’re making it worse and better at the same time.”
She leaned forward again, expression sharpening. “Do you even like each other anymore?”
The question hit harder than the divorce word.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Abigail nodded slowly. “Right.”
“I love him,” I said, too quickly. “I do. I just…” I stared at the table. “I don’t recognise us. We used to talk. We used to laugh. We used to touch each other like it was instinct.”
“And now?”
“Now we pass each other in the kitchen like we’re trying not to collide.”
Abigail’s voice softened. “Babe. That’s not a dry patch. That’s… distance.”
I swallowed.
Because she was right. And because hearing it said out loud made it real.
Abigail and I met years ago, when I was still full of ambition and big plans, working as an apprentice in a magazine editor’s office. I’d been assigned a piece about influencer marketing and the rise of it all.
Abigail, working in marketing then, was one of my sources.
We were both hungry for something. Career. Freedom. A life that felt big.
We’d bonded over late nights and strategy chats and the kind of shared drive that makes you feel like you’re invincible.
She’s still that woman, ambitious, fearless, refusing to settle. Only now, she owns her own marketing company in the city.
Me? I’d settled. Not in a bad way. Just… in the way your life becomes small on paper but massive in responsibility.
Abigail never made me feel small for it.
If anything, she admired me. The way I admire her.
She stirred her espresso, watching me. “Tell me about Dan.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
She tilted her head. “Before all this. Why you chose him.”
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
Because I could remember. Too well.
It was Harry’s housewarming party.
Harry and Lou; the ones who are now godparents to our kids, the ones we never see enough because life is chaos and everyone’s always ill. They were just… Harry and Lou back then. Young. Loud. Full of future.
I was mid-conversation when I glanced up and saw him across the room.
Dan.
Tall. Dark. Handsome in that unfair, cinematic way. Dark hair that curled slightly at the ends. Deep brown eyes that landed on mine like he already knew me.
