“I’m surprised you came,” I told him.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.” I fumbled with what to say back to him. We were like awkward teenagers on a first date. Tentatively, I walked over and embraced him, not caring where things stood with Alex. It was the kind of gesture couples exchange after suffering something traumatic. We finally pulled apart and I watched him leave. After I was sure he was far away, I started crying and felt like I would never stop.

Somewhere deep in the night, I woke up, not sure of the time or where I was exactly. I had been dreaming about Elle’s wedding. But it’d been a nightmare. It’s a bad sign when the nightmare you’re living in is worse than the one you’re dreaming about. The clock read three-thirty. My heart seized. Was Griffin back? I jumped up and headed to the sitting room. He was sitting on the sofa with his head hanging down toward his chest.

I just stood there a minute taking him in. He had come to me. Before anyone else. I leaned on the doorframe. It startled him.

“Bae?” He shook himself awake and began wiping phantom crumbs or drool from around his mouth. My heart was not immune to even this awkwardness. “What time is it?”

“It’s about three-thirty,” I said, staying put.

“You travel light for a girl,” he said, looking at all my worldly possessions on the floor next to him. “I thought you would have more stuff.” And then he looked at me. For a long time.

“Be glad it wasn’t Elle,” I said. He kept staring.

“You still have my flannel shirt?”

I looked down at the shirt I was wearing, the one I had appropriated from him so long ago. “I never leave home without it. It goes with me everywhere. Even fancy attorneys’ offices.” I sat beside him on the sofa. I rubbed his shoulder through the flannel shirt he was wearing.

“What? You want this one too?”

I thought of clever comebacks. Even tragic ones like, “I’ve taken everything else from you, why not the shirt off your back?” But sleep captured me and my cleverness and held me tightly in her grip.

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Five

I woke the next morning to the sound of the hotel door closing and Griffin grousing about the quality and price of room service breakfast. Some things never change. And then I remembered. My life. I got up.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” I said and watched him pour a second cup.

“This breakfast is not as good as the hotel we stayed in last time,” he said. I lingered on the word “we.” It was as if we were a married couple who frequently stayed in hotels and ordered room service.

“I am so sorry for all of this,” I said.