I push past them to a small cafe, its exterior crowded with giggling couples and families, the children mesmerized by plates of cream, shaved white chocolate piled atop syrup-drenched cakes. The woman inside is fleecy-haired, exhausted. She scowls a warning. Be quick, her expression says.

I take my time, nonetheless, poring over their cheesecakes and in the end, commit to a slice of their bestseller and a mug of coffee, black as grief.

“Upstairs,” the waitress barks at me and I bob an acknowledgment, darting up a spiralling staircase. The second storey is lonely of people, low-roofed and too hot. I take a seat beside the window and stare, silent. The sun makes everyone beautiful.

We came here once, you and I. I’d clung to your shadow as you steered us to a table, my voice in a box in the basement of your apartment. You ordered—what was it? I don’t remember any specifics anymore, only sweetness and curls of chocolate, too much for either of us. You smiled at me and it was good, and I wish it wasn’t the few moments I loved about us.

I miss that version of us.

But I don’t miss it enough to not rewrite this memory, replace that evening with this one. The light beading on the rim of my mug, on my blue jeans. The quiet like a homecoming. Animal wives are performative, performances, a menagerie of curated expression and long-lashed silences. We exist to accent and accentuate that which makes our husbands impressive.

If you read this one day, darling, go fuck yourself.

I choke down every mouthful, chase every clump of sugar down with another gasp of coffee. I eat until I’m sick. It will not be the best memory, but it will be mine and there will be nothing of you layered in its nuances, no trace of your expressions, no ghost of your voice. When I talk about this memory one day, it’ll be without you in the conversation.

You kept me silent for so long.

It only seems fair.

I remember when I first saw you.

It was on the stoop of an old temple. You’d been crying for hours. Salt seeped between your fingers in glistening rills, like someone’d licked rivers across the back of your palms. You looked like you were praying, had been begging the stars to spill out the love they’d eaten. While the moon glared, you slit your palm—the tiniest notch, like a small red seed—and squeezed until you’d anointed the steps with your blood. Please, you said. Like the word would be enough.

In a way, I suppose, it was.