Sally rode with me to the airport, and then hugged me goodbye with a promise to check in often. I fought my resentment about riding in first-class, wearing new clothes and the expensive perfume Finley had sent me. I was so far from the sloppy drunk I had been just two months before, and even the ash-covered, smelly adventure photographer I loved to be, but everything looked different sober, even me.

Just as the plane taxied to the runway, my phone lit up, and Finley’s face kissing at me shone bright on the display.

She had come to Passages just once, long enough for us to have a three-hour counseling session and dinner. She’d tearfully admitted to me that she’d walked past Falyn into the apartment, seeing a picture of me on the nightstand and assuming it was Tyler she was crawling into bed with. She recalled him calling her Falyn when she settled into the bed, but she was so jealous and hurt she could only think of retaliation. She was too ashamed to speak to me after that—until the day she sat in a beautiful room with beautiful flowers, marble floors, and expensive paintings chosen to promote calm and comfort while our ugliest sins spilled from our mouths.

“Hello?” I said, holding the phone to my ear. “Getting ready to take off, Fin.”

“You should call Tyler. He’s a little anxious.”

“That makes two of us.”

“He wants to see you.”

“I want to see him, too. I’m just not sure if it should be tonight.”

“He wants to pick you up from the airport. José can do it. It’s completely up to you.”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic, Fin, not a child.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll tell José to meet you in baggage claim at seven-thirty.”

“It’s okay. Driving from Denver will make for a nice chat.”

“With Tyler?” she asked.

“Yes. I have to go, Fin. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Elliebee.”

I pressed END and placed my phone in the console between me and the older gentleman in a Prada suit and eyeglasses. He reminded me a bit of Stavros, the bartender from the Colorado Springs hotel, with his silver hair and style. As the plane took off, I thought about my last moments with Tyler, the choices that I had spent sixty days trying to let go, and the way Tyler had looked at me. I wondered if he would see me that way, as the weak, lost little girl he had to babysit. Ellie three-point-oh was neither weak nor lost, but she was carrying a lot of guilt and not enough forgiveness.