Chapter One I''ve chosen Amtrak''s quiet car, so I stifle the urge to sob, to scream, to whimper in exhaustion or screech in fear of the strangers around me. It''s wild how quickly I got used to staying home. Now riding a largely vacant train feels complicated and draining, like navigating a foreign country. Virgo meows on the seat next to me, and I unzip the carrier to scratch her ears. Mike didn''t want me to take her--he even reached for her carrier as I headed for the door. Reach for me . Fight for me . I''m the one you should keep from leaving.
My breath hitches, and a sob plucks at my throat. I look down at the sandwich I bought before boarding, but my stomach has that hollow, wrung-out feeling from crying so much the past three days. I''m not sure I''ll ever feel hungry again. While I sat in the cavernous belly of Thirtieth Street Station, the vibe was fearful, hushed, crackling with distrust. Masked travelers eyed one another warily. It seems like a lifetime ago that we moved freely and breezily breathed in the air, sucking it into our bodies like milk-drunk babies. I''d felt relieved to board the train, but then a man sat behind me and now he''s eating a salad, infusing the car with his hot breath. Did I think this through? It''s been sixteen hours since I shelled out $59 for a one-way ticket from Philadelphia to Washington, D.
C. It might not sound like much, but my personal bank account isn''t bulging. Mike''s company funded our move; his new salary and signing bonus have been carrying us through my unemployment. The sandwich was another stupid $12. But of course, my mental math is just a distraction, an anxiety more comfortable than the true problem that looms. I gaze out the window, where pretty houses and church steeples poke out of the distance. Sabrina has a meeting at my arrival time, so her husband, Nathan, will pick me up from Union Station. I feel a squeeze of fear every time I remember this fact.
I''m nervous enough to see Sabrina, and now I''ll have to start this bonkers open-ended visit by finding a stranger in a train station. My phone buzzes in the seat pocket. Mike . Hope crackles--has he changed his mind? "Hello?" I keep my voice low. I shouldn''t have picked the quiet car; a woman a few rows up turns to glare. "Kelly. Hey." He swallows, and all the molecules in my body hold still.
"Uh--I can''t find the laundry detergent." My insides drop. "What?" "I''m trying to wash the sheets and--" "Under the kitchen sink. With all the other cleaning products." Everything about the image fills me with sadness: Mike helpless in the hallway, peering at the washing machine; the fact that he''s already cleaning our bedsheets, ridding them of my scent. I hear the clunk of a door springing open. "Found it. Sorry to bother you.
" Static fizzes and moisture coats my eyes. What happened to us? I want to scream. We''re supposed to be planning a life together. "The train okay?" he asks. I whisk away my tears. "Yup. Text me if there''s anything else, okay? I shouldn''t be on the phone." "Oh, right.
Sorry." "It''s okay." I hesitate. "I''m sorry too." "Look, let''s not--" He cuts himself off, clears his throat. I know I screwed up. I thought we could move past it, but now I''m less sure than ever. "Text me when you get there.
Bye, Kelly." He hangs up before I can reply, and I feel a plunge of despair. This is not how I pictured year 34. It was supposed to be the best one yet, the year when life finally began: I had a fresh start in Philadelphia with my sweet, successful fiancé. A wedding planned, the real-life incarnation of a Pinterest board I''d been secretly updating since long before I met Mike, the invitations sent, the venue--a rustic barn near my parents'' house in Illinois--locked down. Others have it worse. I''m not sequestered in a field hospital, a ventilator controlling my lungs. My body wasn''t shunted into the back of a refrigerated truck.
But this? It sucks. It really, really sucks. I blame myself--Lord knows I''ve beaten myself up enough--but the caterer bears some responsibility too. Our other vendors were so understanding: We get it, no one''s holding gatherings. But the farm-to-table eatery we''d hired wouldn''t stop blowing up my phone, demanding we secure a new date or lose our deposit. My future father-in-law was underwriting the whole affair, and Mike refused to call him about it. I attributed it to Mike''s overwhelm--or even his laziness, in my less-kind moments. We fought about it.
We fought about lots of things. And then, three days ago, he cracked my life in two, snapped it like a wishbone. I catch myself worrying a nail over the gash in my palm. A gash of shame, a scabby reminder of the ugliness that poured out of me last week. I snatch my phone back up, then reread the casual text that stopped me in my tracks yesterday. I still can''t believe it''s real, not something I hallucinated: "You should come stay with us." Heart pounding, I''d given the "ha-ha" reaction. But Sabrina doubled down: "I''m serious! We have a spare room.
And Lord knows, we could use the company." That''s when my hands started shaking. I was alone in our bedroom in Philadelphia. It faced the street, with bars over the windows ostensibly to keep the riffraff out, but they made it feel like a jail cell too. "That''s so nice of you!" I replied. "But I wouldn''t want to intrude." She began typing back right away. "It wouldn''t be an intrusion at all--honestly, Nathan is such an extrovert, he is DYING for someone to talk to who isn''t me.
(And as an introvert, I am dying for him to have someone to talk to who isn''t me, lol.) No pressure but it''s a serious offer! Maybe for a week or two? Could be good for both of you." Both of us. Something my mom drilled into me, a lesson gleaned from forty-plus years of married bliss: You and your partner are a team. You make decisions together. When I floated the idea, he jumped right on it. But I wanted him to fight for me. To beg me to stay.
Crying in a mask is disgusting. Even the thud-thud-thud of the train over the tracks can''t cloak my shuddery breath. The fabric pulls as tight as a gag with every gasp, and tears and snot soak the inside. More people turn and glare. I hear my mother''s voice: Get it together, Kelly. Get a grip. I send Sabrina an update: "Passing Baltimore!" I should be texting her and Nathan both, but I''m still intimidated by him. It''s hard to believe that three weeks ago, I didn''t even have Sabrina''s number.
We''d followed each other on Instagram for years, but for whatever reason, her photos rarely showed up on my feed. And then--bored with the pandemic that just wouldn''t quit, blissfully unaware that a grenade was about to blow up my life, I found myself scrolling through that roll of happy people. And the algorithm threw in a wild card: an update from Sabrina Lamont. She''s perfect. I knew her as Sabrina Balzer in high school, a tangential friend in the same nerd-adjacent clique, though we never hung out one-on-one. I remembered her as mousy and quiet; she hadn''t crossed my mind in decades. But jeez, I thought, look at her now. Thick brown waves spilled like rapids over her shoulders.
She had a Frank Lloyd Wright face, sharp cheekbones and a square jaw, with sculpted brows and leprechaun-green eyes. It was a selfie from an outdoor lounge chair, and behind her stretched a sparkling pool the color of sapphires. That night, I let the world darken as I tapped my way around her online presence, feeling that grubby rush of indiscipline, the same waterfall of want that has you finishing the pint of ice cream or wrenching off a scab, exposing the ink-red underneath. I found old blog posts by her and news articles about her and read them hungrily. I unearthed images of her at a gala and clicked through all eighteen red-carpet photos. We all have Instagram friends we''re obsessed with, right? I couldn''t get enough of her glory: her mansion an hour outside D.C.; hikes through the Blue Ridge Mountains; Throwback Thursdays to glitzy events with her husband, Nathan, who was tall and broad and more cute than handsome with his thick red-blond beard and aquiline nose.
A power couple. And sure, he had some high-ranking government job she referenced in captions, but she was no trophy wife; she''s a goddamn New York Times bestselling author, which, Christ. What? How .