I can’t really recall what I was feeling then, but I assume I felt everything, every emotion, big and small, just as most experience over the course of a relationship, except in my case it all came during a ten-minute walk. I went right back to the same theater and bought with my last ten dollars a ticket to the film I had wanted to see in the first place. And then I sat and watched shit get blown up and torn to pieces.

For the first half hour or so I was somewhat numb and got into the movie while hardly thinking of Carolyn. But before the hour was up, the whole fight began replaying in my mind, and as it did, I felt a sharp pain in both hands from the white-knuckled grip I had on the armrests. Sometime during the second hour, I began to realize that Carolyn was right, about everything, and thus I accepted what a piece of shit I had truly been. My mind quickly turned to how I could fix the problem. Surely there had to be a solution. For twenty minutes, I believed there was. And then all of a sudden, I knew there wasn’t, and I spent the last thirty minutes in deep despair and crushing remorse, which segued to full-blown panic by the time the movie ended.

I rushed out ahead of the crowd and bought flowers from the first store I passed. I speed-walked, then broke into a jog. I had the shakes again, and it was then I realized what had been happening: In some odd way I was racing through the five stages of grief at hyper-speed. During the first half hour, I wasn’t numb; I hadn’t thought of Carolyn because I was in denial.

Carolyn.

I sprinted the rest of the way back and rushed up the stairs and nearly shouldered through the door. But when I got inside I found the apartment empty. And by empty, what I really mean is abandoned. Carolyn’s stuff was gone—her clothes, her television, her bags. Everything. I walked to the desk and went back to the door. Hanging on the hook beside it were Carolyn’s keys. I lifted them away and, behind them, almost escaping notice, I found the ankle bracelet I had bought her for Christmas. She had finally taken it off, and thus left it behind.

I sat on the bed, placed my head in my hands. Then I dialed Carolyn’s number. Straight to voicemail. In my sweetest voice, I left a message asking her to please call me back. And then, when I least expected it, something reached out from under the bed and grabbed ahold of the back of my ankle. I jumped and yelped in surprise. But it was only Thomas and his sandpapery tongue. I was confused as hell why he’d been left behind.

“Where’s Mommy?” I asked, picking him up.