And there were things that were new, things I found myself noticing and wanting to see again and again. The little smile she made when she knew she had just said something funny and was waiting for me to catch up. It was the subtlest thing, just a slight tilt to the edges of her lips and eyes. A challenge.

The way she gently pinched her lower lip when she was reading.

There was the way she kissed me that day on the roof, slow and lazy and like there was nowhere else, nowhere at all to be.

But I didn’t know this Sara. I’d always suspected that the feistiness I enjoyed so much about her was a form of self-preservation. But I never anticipated the way it would feel to see it gone like this; it was like a punch in the gut that took the breath straight from my lungs.

I gathered her hands in mine and took a step back. “What’s going on?” I asked, gauging her expression. “Talk to me.”

She leaned into me again. “Don’t want to talk.”

“Sara, I don’t mind being your distraction but at least be honest with me about it. Something’s wrong.”

“I’m fine.” But she wasn’t fine. She wouldn’t have come here if she were.

“Bullshit. You’re breaking your own rules by even being here. This is better—this is real—but it’s also different and I want to know why.”

She pulled back, looking up at me. “Andy called.”

“I know,” I said, my jaw clenched tight.

She smiled apologetically. “He said he wanted me back. Said all the things I once wanted him to say, about how he’s different now and he messed up and could never hurt me again.”

I watched her, waiting. She pressed her face to my wet neck, getting courage. “He’s just worried about his campaign. Our entire relationship was a lie.”

“I’m so sorry, Sara.”

“I looked up Cecily.”

I blinked, confused. “Okay?”

“Something about her name stuck with me, and after you told me about her, I wanted to know what she looked like.” She pulled back, looking at me. “She was familiar, but it didn’t sink in until tonight. I’d met a lot of people with Andy and usually I’d forget their faces two seconds after I shook their hands . . . but I remembered her.”

I nodded, my stomach warming, but let her keep talking.

“So I went home and I looked her up again before I called him back.” She paused, her voice shaking slightly. “He went on and on for a half hour about how sorry he was, how it was just the one time and he’d never be able to forgive himself. So I asked him about Cecily. And do you know what he said?”

“Cecily . . . what?”

“He said, ‘Fuck, Sare. Do we have to do this now? That’s ancient history.’ He fucked her, Max. Andy was the politician she talked about in her letter. Andrew Morton, whoring congressman from Illinois and fucking his way through the Seventh District. They slept together the night I met her, at a campaign event for Schumer.”