The question shouldn’t have startled her. But it did. Gwen cleared her throat, fingers tracing the condensation ring her water had left on the table.
“Grad school,” she said finally. “A party.” She could still see it: a cramped apartment with peeling linoleum, someone blasting Beyoncé through tinny speakers, the smell of beer and cheap pizza. Maggie on the couch in ripped jeans, laughing so loud it had pulled Gwen across the room like gravity. Gwen had been there with a napkin when Maggie had spilled something, taking any excuse to talk to her. “I was… drawn to her. Instantly.” Gwen gave a small, rueful laugh. “Moth to a flame.”
Izzy’s lips curved, soft. Lillian’s, sharper.
“Clearly you still are,” Lillian murmured. “Even if that’s a little dangerous for a moth, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for an answer, like she didn’t expect one. Then she slid from the table with feline grace, disappearing into the press of bodies and chaos.
The noise of the bar seemed to recede, just for a beat. She hated to admit that Lillian did have a point.
Izzy shifted beside her, shoulders brushing. When Gwen finally glanced over, Izzy was watching her with an expression that was equal parts kind and curious.
Izzy cleared her throat. “So, how long have you two been separated?”
The words landed with more gentleness than Gwen expected, but they still knocked the air from her chest.
Gwen kept her gaze on her glass, the rim cold against her fingertips. There was no use denying it. Izzy knew them better than any of their friends, having spent time with them after not one but two tragedies. Of course she’d figured it out. “It’s complicated,” Gwen said, tone edging toward final. She tried for her calmest expression, the one that had gotten her through meetings with impossible clients and funerals. “We’re… figuring things out.”
Izzy’s eyes softened, but her voice was steady. “Come on, Gwen. I know you two. Be honest with me.”
Gwen exhaled, long and shaky. She hadn’t planned ontalking about this tonight — not here, not in this ridiculous piano bar with glowing cocktails and sing-a-longs and Maggie out there twirling like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Her throat tightened anyway. “Six months,” she said finally. “We’ve been separated six months.”
Izzy’s lips parted, but she didn’t speak right away. Gwen pushed on before she could stop herself.
“I sleep in the guest room. We only talk when we have to — about bills, the kids, schedules. It’s like living with a ghost of someone you…” Her voice caught. She pressed her nails into her palm. “Someone you still love. Even when you know you shouldn’t.”
The words landed heavy between them, muffled by the crowd’s off-key singalong of “Sweet Caroline.”
Izzy reached across the table, squeezed her hand once, firm and certain. “That sounds like hell.”
Gwen swallowed, blinking hard. “It is.”
Out on the dance floor, Maggie laughed at something Kiera said, head thrown back, confetti in her hair. Gwen’s chest ached like she’d been carved open.
Izzy’s thumb brushed over Gwen’s knuckles, grounding her in the middle of all the noise. “Hey,” she said softly, almost drowned out by the crowd’s ragged chorus. “You don’t have to beat yourself up for this. Nobody gets marriage exactly right. Nobody. You and Maggie… you’re allowed to be messy. You’re allowed to still love each other, even if it hurts.”
Gwen blinked hard, the sting in her eyes threatening to spill. She turned her hand under Izzy’s and gave it a quick squeeze before pulling back, needing the space.
Izzy didn’t press. She just leaned back in her chair, giving Gwen the dignity of silence.
Gwen let out a sigh that felt like it came from her bones, then tipped her glass and drained the rest of her drink in oneswallow. The ice clinked when she set it down, a soft sound that somehow cut through the din of the room. “I prefer it when you tell me useless facts when I’m upset.”
“Did you know Venus is the only planet that spins clockwise?” Izzy asked immediately.
“That’s better,” Gwen said, her amusement feeling bittersweet. “Just… we aren’t really telling anyone, if you don’t mind keeping it to yourself.”
“About Venus? Yeah, totally,” Izzy said, leaning back in her chair.
Onstage, the pianists barreled into another song, the crowd whooping like it had never heard music before. Maggie’s laughter floated above it, bright and sharp, and Gwen sat in the amber glow of the table light, feeling both emptied out and too full all at once.
CHAPTER 13
Maggie
Maggie hadn’t letherself feel this light in months. Maybe years. The piano players had rolled through Queen and Pat Benatar and back again, the whole room shouting lyrics like they were gospel, and Maggie was in the middle of it — hair wild, sweat slick, Pete egging her on like they were co-captains of chaos. For once, she wasn’t thinking about Gwen watching her, or what tomorrow would feel like. She was just moving, laughing, spilling neon cocktails down her arm and not caring.
Then the pianists shifted gears. One slid into something soft, tender, the keys spilling a melody that hushed the room. Etta James’s “At Last.”
