Hey. I’ve had fun with you, but to be quite honest I don’t think I can date a man with familial responsibilities right now. As clichéd as it sounds, it’s not you, it’s me. I wish you the best.

On Saturday night he started texting me again, incessantly, so I blocked his number. And I swear to God, I forgot about him for days.

I went out Saturday night with Quinn and our friends from college, Claudia and Evan. I hadn’t seen them in a while and they were a little cool toward me, but as we drank, everyone loosened up. We did some coke, smoked a lot of cigarettes. Went to three different Bushwick bars.

The next morning I vomited for a solid hour, drank some Pedialyte. Slept it off, ate some runny eggs that Quinn made for me. We got stoned and watched Midsommar. We FaceTimed Sam, even though he and Quinn were technically still on a break. I didn’t even touch work and Huda was barely in contact with me, except to ask about where we should go to dinner on Wednesday night with the owner of a popular Los Angeles boutique.

Tuesday was another bright, unseasonably warm day. I grabbed a chocolate croissant for breakfast, let myself bask in the sunshine on a bench in Union Square before heading into the office. The day filed along as normal; there was a supply chain mishap that we had to run a fire drill for. A brief concern that an Instagram influencer turned designer may be knocking off one of our designs.

It wasn’t until midday that I heard anyone jabbering about what had happened. “OMG, Katie, this is so sick,” our social media manager Todd said to our content creation freelancer. “This Brooklyn tech bro totally just annihilated his pregnant wife.”

I heard her squeal. “OMG he is hot!”

“I know, right? The psychopaths always are. Check out Richard Ramirez. Those cheekbones! This one offed himself, sadly, so no chance to be his prison pen pal,” Todd sighed.

I thought nothing of it. I didn’t even ask to see what they were talking about. I had too much on my plate.

It wasn’t until Huda, sitting in her office, called me on my cell. “Dude, I’m like thirty feet away from you. Just text me.” I could see her on the phone with me through the glass door of her office, her face sickeningly pale, like a ghoul. I could read her lips through the clear glass as I heard her speak to me on the phone.

“No, Vera. You have to come in here. Now.” Her voice was rough and guttural, a scraggly alley cat’s rumble.

I closed her office door behind me, so no one could hear our conversation. “What is it with the theatrics? I’m telling you, we’ll get legal on the knockoff stuff. It’ll be okay.”