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“Thank you!” I exclaim—to her only.

“I’m asking because from what I can tell, he was trying to keep you safe.”

“Trying to keep me safe,” I repeat, making sure he hears his own words.

Rhys exhales hard through his nose and throws his hands in the air. “I’m not saying it was okay!”

A humorless laugh escapes me. “Uh—it very much sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

Stooping forward, he hangs his head between his shoulders and takes a slow, exasperated breath. When he glances up, his eyes are pleading for me to understand. “Maybe there’s more context than you have right now.”

I look around, embellishing my movements. “Is he here? Hiding behind a bookcase? Is there a laser sight pointed at your head?”

Micky shifts beside me. “Rhys, if she says he made her uncomfortable then he’s in the wrong. The end.”

I lean back into the sofa and cross my arms, appreciating that at least one person is defending me. “Did he tell you I found him at a motel? Do you know what he was doing?”

Micky jerks toward me. “What?” she shrieks. “Did you catch him cheating⁠—”

“No,” my brother and I answer in unison.

The night I showed up here, Rhys was practically out the door and heading to Casper’s place before I even took off my coat. I raise an eyebrow. “What exactly did he tell you?”

His jaw twitches. “Enough to know it’s more complicated than you think. I know what he did, and to be perfectly honest, I’m glad he did it.”

A cold prickle works its way down my spine.

This is Casper’s fault. He manipulated my brother just like he did me. It’s not fair. Doesn’t Casper realize I’m already going through hell? Maybe hurting me again is part of his retaliation. He’s been hiding in my fucking walls—why wouldn’t he thread himself into other places in my life I didn’t invite him, right?

Nothing stable or organized or clean and it makes me itchy. It’s all fucked. Even my apartment is still a disaster since I was in the middle of rearranging everything when I found the mirror. Tears fight to the surface. The amount of times I’ve sobbed this past week is obnoxious. I’m sick of crying, sick of being shocked, sick of feeling like every time I get my feet under me, some new trap door opens and gobbles me up.

Anything you put at the center of your life has the power to collapse it, and somewhere along the way, without meaning to, I put him there.

That realization hurts almost as much as losing him, not because it was wrong to want more, but because I betrayed myself. I let my whole world start to revolve around one person. One person’s love, their presence, their ability to make me feel safe and wanted and alive. And now he’s gone, and everything in me wants to go down with it. But I refuse to let this breakup take my sobriety too.

What we had was so good. That’s the part I can’t reconcile. Not chaotically infatuated good, but actually good. It was warm and funny and domestic and thrilling and alive. He was perfect.

Was.

Life was great and now it’s shit. That’s the best summary I’ve got.

“We painted fucking mugs,” I sob. “Do you know how sick that is? We had ceramic intimacy! We had dates with crafts! We made keepsakes!”

And I’m officially losing it.

“I considered getting us matching Christmas pajamas!”

“No, Anna.” She hugs her arms around me. “Please, God, no.”

“I wasn’t really going to get them!” I blubber. “But I thought about it! We were almost scrapbook people, Micky! Scrapbook people!”

She shakes her head. “You were not scrapbook people.”

I sniffle, trying to compose myself. “I swear to Christ the week after we started dating, I got mailers for suburban wine bars. I mean, even they could tell we were perfect. They knew—they fucking knew!”

“Who knew?” Rhys asked.

“The suburban wine bar people!” I wail at him, my arms flopping to my lap.