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“Smart,” I say, trying to shake off the refrain of home home home beating along with my heart. “Better to end things now so you don’t get stuck in the holiday relationship cycle. You’d be saddled together past Valentine’s Day, and no one wants that.”

He nods, his face completely unreadable.

“Are you happy?” I ask, trying to change the subject when the silence feels too intimate.

He answers after a beat. “I’d like to be. I’m working on it.”

I smile at the honesty.

He taps my foot with his. “What about you?”

“I’m working on it too. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how.” I try to offer up another smile, but I know I just look helpless. I know Henry can see through it. I watch his mind churn and before it even happens, I sense that he’s decided to move toward me, to comfort me. I stand up abruptly, allowing him the cover to think I didn’t clock exactly what he was about to do.

“I should clean these before the cheese gets any more caked on,” I say, scooping up the tray and plates, and hurrying off to the kitchen to wash them. “It’s a one-woman job since you did all the cooking,” I call over my shoulder when he starts to follow.

Always a runner.

* * *

I scrub the dishes until they’re clean twice over, letting the soap and the hot water prune my fingers, a welcome distraction from everything brewing in that guest room that suddenly feels far too small for both Henry and me to exist in.

When I come back to the room, Henry is lying back across the foot of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, feet firmly planted on the floor.

“I think we should talk about the elephant in the room,” he says, sitting up.

“What, how I’m going so hard against traditional gender norms and letting you have the bed?”

His fingers graze the side of the quilt so gently I’m not even sure he knows he did it.

“I meant how you hate me,” he says, something behind his icy blue eyes that I can’t read.

“I thought we called a truce, Henry. Operation Latke? Plus, you’re no fan of mine either,” I remind him.

“I never said that.” He’s not even being defensive, he’s just stating a fact, plain as day.

“It’s been nine years. You don’t have to say it for me to know it’s true.”

“Norah,” he starts, standing up abruptly, but then stopping short. “I never wanted things to be like this. Not now. Not…” He trails off.

I look at him, waiting for him to meet my eyes, but he doesn’t.

He runs his hand through his hair and down his neck, as if he needs the extra support to look at me. “Not then.”

“Then,” I repeat.

I can barely process that word, then. Before we wrecked each other. There’s no other then to speak of in our sordid history.

He must feel bad for how it all went down. He’s trying to smooth things over now that we’re being forced back into each other’s lives.

Maybe he missed my friendship. We were such good friends. For so long. Kristine and Henry moved next door when we were three, before Hannah was even born. I can’t remember a time when they weren’t our neighbors. Dad used to say that I was Hannah’s first friend, but that Henry was mine.

It’s been so long. The last thing I want is to reopen old wounds.

“Look, we don’t have to talk about that,” I tell him. I will power through the hurt and be his friend, for Mom’s sake, hoping my decision shows on my face, and Henry just drops it.

“I knew there was a we,” he says, pushing us in the exact opposite direction from what I wanted.

“There’s no we, Henry. Not now and definitely not then.” Lies lies lies, my heart beats out.