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I snickered and took another drink, nearly draining my glass.

“How was work?” Lily asked.

“It was rough, long. Today was my first day with the kids, and it went well. You know, other than feeling like a dead fish.”

They nodded, and we all took a drink.

I set my empty glass down and watched the ice melt inside. “I went to Cooper’s after work today.”

“What happened?” Lily asked gently.

“I told him that I needed time.”

Rose waited through a breath. “What happened over the weekend?”

I pushed my glass to her, and she filled it up. “It was amazing. Perfect. He was perfect. And in the end, I told him I wanted to be with him. To say fuck the rules and be together, to tell West. And then, Jimmy happened.”

“Fucking Jimmy.” Rose passed my drink over and sipped her own.

But I just held the glass in my hands and shook my head. “So I went to Cooper’s after work. I had to talk to talk to him, try to explain, you know? After all that, after making a promise, to have to go back on it …”

“How did it he take it?” Lily asked.

“Better than I thought he would, honestly. I expected him to try to convince me to change my mind, but he just let me go. I don’t know if I had the willpower to say no if he begged.” I spun my glass around. “He told me that he’d be waiting.” I took a heavy sip to burn away the lump in my throat.

Rose and Lily exchanged looks.

“What?” I asked.

Rose shook her head. “It’s just that this is so unlike Cooper.”

Lily shifted in her seat. “I mean, you have to understand — Cooper gets what he wants. No, it’s not even that. He can convince you to give him what he wants, and he’ll even have you thanking him for convincing you by the end of it. You said he just let you go. That he wants to be with you, and he let you go. It goes against Cooper physics.”

I felt sick. “Maybe he just doesn’t care about me enough to put up a fight.”

“He said he would wait for you,” Rose said. “That doesn’t sound like he wasn’t putting up a fight. It sounds like he’s giving you what you need so you’ll come back to him. Putting your needs above his own.”

I sighed. “That doesn’t make me feel less pressure to make a decision.” I picked up my drink and knocked it back.

“I know. But you should know that we believe he’s sincere, if that’s a question,” Lily added.

I wiped the sweat off my glass. “I just…I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about Cooper or Jimmy or even myself. The closest I can get is knowing that I’d like to drink a third of this bottle, eat a pint of ice cream, and cry myself to sleep.”

Lily watched me. “What did you do with the box?”

“It’s in the closet. If you want to set it on fire or anything, be my guest.”

Rose poured another drink for herself. “Have you heard from Jimmy?”

“He texted me again. I haven’t responded to him in months, though.” I drained my drink and passed it to Rose, who took it and made quick work of filling it back up. “Now it’s been so long since we’ve talked, I don’t know what to say.”

“How about, ‘Go lick a hot iron real quick.’”

Rose snorted. “‘Stick a paperclip in an outlet and then call me.’”

“What would you even say to him?” Lily sat back in her seat, gathering her hair up and twisting it absently.

“I really don’t know. The hardest part of all of this is … well, everything. Even just seeing his handwriting. It’s the same handwriting on notes passed to me in high school. The only handwriting that’s ever written ‘I love you.’” I shook my head. “He’s the only man I’ve ever loved. But the entire thing was a lie, and I’m the fool who believed it. The fool who was suckered for years into thinking I’d found my dream guy.”

Rose rested her elbows on the table. “You don’t think he loved you?”

I dragged in a breath and let it go. “No, I suppose he loved me in his way. Loves me, if his note is true. But I don’t know that he’s capable of giving me what I want, giving me what he promised me when he put that ring on my finger. I believe he loves me, but I don’t believe he respects me. If he did, he wouldn’t have ever cheated. I just don’t know why he won’t let me go. Why would he do this to me? He’s already hurt me enough, and it’s not like I’ve been stringing him along. I haven’t even spoken to him. I thought moving two thousand miles away would solidify my stance on our relationship.”

Lily nodded. “I’m sure he’s sad and hurt, feeling guilty.”

My brow dropped at the thought, my hurt burning fresh. “I don’t pity him. I hope he regrets what he did to me every day for the rest of his life. The more I consider his motivation for sending that fucking box — which was selfish, because of course it was  — the angrier I get. I was trying to move on, get over it.”

“But you weren’t, really.” Rose pointed out.

“No, I wasn’t. But I was trying to. Pretending to. If I ignored it long enough, it would have just been behind me one day, wouldn’t it have?” I knew how delusional it sounded the second it left my mouth, but funny enough, it’d always been something I’d considered an actual solution.

Rose sighed and picked at the placemat. “It doesn’t work that way in my experience. Your hurt just hangs around in some dark corner of your mind until something triggers it. And then, it explodes.”

I blew out a long breath, realizing how dumb I’d been. “Like last night.”

“Yes, like last night.” Lily paused. “Are you going to answer Jimmy? Call him?”

Dread snaked through me. “I don’t know.”

She picked up her drink. “I think what you need is closure.”

The word sounded like a promise, laced with hope. “But how?”

Lily shook her head. “I don’t know, but I think it’s the only way you’ll get through it, or at least the fastest way. Time can only do so much, you know? I mean, you can hide out, but look at how that’s going. He sent a letter and a box full of things that you already knew existed in the world, and you hyperventilated until you passed out. When was the last time you talked to him? Like, really talked to him?”

“Just before I left. He came over again, and Daddy sent him packing.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like you really talked to him. What happened after the wedding?”

“He came over the next day, but I got so upset when we tried to talk that I nearly had a panic attack. Daddy told him not to come back.”

“And then what happened?” Lily asked. “When did you see him after that?”

“I didn’t. I stayed home a lot, avoided the places I knew he went.”

“So,” Rose leaned on the table, “you mean to say that you never really sat down and talked to Jimmy about everything?”

“I guess not,” I answered quietly. “I didn’t have to handle anything, really. Mom sent all the gifts back, Daddy handled all the money. I got through the reception and then it was almost like it never happened. Except he’d come by, text me, call me. I just ignored him. I ignored everyone, and then I ran away.”

Lily’s eyes were sad. No one spoke, so I kept going.

“I didn’t know what to say to him. I just wanted him to go away, disappear. It’s why I moved here, you know that.”

“And he hasn’t let you go. He’s not going to either, I’d bet. Not until you deal with him.” Lily said.

“So … I should call him?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

Rose took a deep breath. “You’ve got to find a way to face it because if you don’t, it’ll just keep following you around like a ghost. Just when you think it’s gone, that you’re better, wham. Something happens and kicks you straight back to rock bottom.”

“Same thing happened when my grandmother died,” Lily said. “I didn’t cry for weeks. Spent all that time distracting myself, rehearsed extra hours, watched a ton of movies. And then, one day, I found her old scarf in my drawer, and I cried for two days straight. It’s unpredictable, grief.”