“What happened?”
“Nothing. Jack left for New York.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I’m fine.”
She set down the mascara. Crossed her arms. Gave me the look that she’d perfected sometime around sophomore year of college, the one that saidI see through your bullshit and I still love you.
“You’re not fine. You’re doing that thing where you pretend to be fine so no one worries about you.” She glanced at the clock. “Robbie can wait. Movies?”
“You don’t have to?—”
“That new one with Steve Martin. Roxanne. I’ve been wanting to see it.”
I should have argued. Should have told her to go to Robbie’s, should have insisted I was capable of spending a Sunday afternoon alone without falling apart. But the truth was, I didn’t want to be alone. The truth was, the city felt too big without him in it, the countdown in my head was too loud, and I needed my best friend more than I needed to pretend I didn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me change.”
The movie was exactly what I needed. Silly and sweet, Steve Martin with a prosthetic nose falling in love with Daryl Hannah, big romantic gestures and witty dialogue and the kind of happy ending that only exists in movies.
We ate popcorn, laughed at the jokes, did normal best friend things, and for two hours I forgot about timelines and countdowns and photographs that were fading in my pocket.
Afterward, we walked home as Diane linked her arm through mine.
“You want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Whatever’s making you look like that.”
I considered lying. It would have been easy—I’d spent so many years perfecting the art of deflection, of surface answers that sounded like honesty. But Diane knew me. She’d always known me.
“I’m scared,” I said. “I finally have something I want, and I’m terrified I’m going to lose it.”
“Jack?”
“Jack. And… other things.” Things I couldn’t explain.
“I feel like I’m standing at a crossroads, and every choice I make is closing a door somewhere else. And I can’t see which doors I’m closing until they’re already gone.”
Diane was quiet for a moment. “That’s called being alive. That’s what everyone feels.”
“I know.” But it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be the same, because I knew things she didn’t know—knew that doors were closing right now, this very moment, futures disappearing like smoke.
We walked the rest of the way home, and when we got there, Diane hugged me and said, “It’s going to be okay. Whatever it is. You’re going to be okay.”
I wanted to believe her.
That night, I lay in bed with the radio playing softly. The station was doing an eighties countdown—“The Way It Is” fading into “Livin’ on a Prayer”—and I let the familiar songs wash over me while the ceiling stared back, unchanged.
I tried to remember my ex-husband’s name. I knew I’d been married. The knowledge was there, solid and certain. Eight years, divorced amicably, he’d remarried someone named… Susan? No.Sandra? That wasn’t right either. A woman with an S name, someone he’d been happier with than he’d ever been with me, and I’d been genuinely glad for him when I’d heard.
But his name was gone. The man I’d shared a home with, a bed with, a life with. Eight years of mornings and evenings and ordinary domestic moments, and I couldn’t remember what to call him. The shape of him was still there. Kind, steady, a little boring. Safe. I’d married him because he was safe.
Not like Jack. Jack had never been safe.
I pulled the Polaroid from my nightstand drawer. Held it up to the dim light from the window.
