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I agreed, but I didn’t agree to feel like this.

I didn’t decide to fall in love with him, like it was an option on our boundaries list.

Fall in love? Yes/No.

Drive yourself insane in the process? Pass, thanks.

I chose this situation, but I didn’t choose these feelings.

Repeat.

I didn’t sabotage myself. I entered into an agreement that, beneath its apparent simplicity, had lurking complications. Our past. Our history. How I felt about him once. How I feel still.

I made a choice that, at the time, seemed to be my only option. But I have options now. And now I get to choose again.

My anger burned out, I go to bed, my footsteps almost silent in the hallway. In Troy’s home office, the bed is back in the armchair position, so I pull out the bed and change the linens.

I make my way into his bathroom, my ears on stalks, still listening for him. Then I trundle back to the office, not quite closing the door before I turn in. The bed still feels too narrow, the mattress thin enough that I can feel the frame beneath my hip. Lying on my side, the temptation to watch for the light through the crack of the door feels too strong to ignore. I move onto my back but my mind won’t settle, thoughts pinging around my brain like a pinball game.

I misread signals. Ping.

Our intimacy made me hopeful in ways it shouldn’t. Ping.

He doesn’t feel the same way. Today in his office was just a moment for him. Game over.

I use the back of my hand to swipe at a rogue tear. I shouldn’t have let myself soften. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. Was it not lesson enough, learning to build a life without depending on anyone else?

I can do it again. I’ll grow an outer shell as hard as nails.

The sound of the front door closing comes just after midnight, and my heart reacts instantly with a sharp and humiliating leap. I keep my eyes closed as though he can see through walls and doors as I listen to him moving through the apartment. The weight of his footsteps and the sound of the fridge opening. The crack of a water can. Footsteps in the hallway, and the low lights that come on automatically.

I inhale and hold that breath, waiting for the moment he realizes I’m not in his bed. I imagine a quiet knock on the office door, my name said in a low and careful tone. But it’s just wishful thinking as his bedroom door closes.

The silence feels definitive.

I release that breath, my chest aching now. The bed creaks when I shift, the sound so loud in the stillness. I stare at the ceiling for what seems like forever. I’m probably the only one of us still lying awake. I shouldn’t care it doesn’t matter to him that I’m not lying in bed next to him.

It was silly to think he might feel my absence in the way I have his.

Deep in my heart, I can’t really blame him.

Chapter 46

Clara

The morning feels wrong before I can name why, maybe because I realize my back is aching the moment I open my eyes. Add to that, it feels like someone is continually tapping their index finger on the top of my head.

I don’t bother opening the blinds, or getting dressed. Instead I stumble into the kitchen, assuming Troy won’t be up yet. But that’s where I find him. Jeans and a T-shirt, thousand-dollar sneakers, tucking into his bowl of cereal like there’s nothing wrong. Meanwhile, I’ve shoved my ratty pink robe over shorts and a T-shirt.

I should’ve bought a new one by now, I castigate myself. Then I decide it doesn’t matter.

Not now.

“Morning,” he says, reaching for his coffee. His eyes lift but only briefly.

So I wasn’t imagining things. My stomach sinks, and I mumble something that sounds vaguely similar as I head for the fancy espresso machine. If he can’t trust himself to look at me, then there was a reason he didn’t come home until late. His home.

“Want me to—”