“I know how to pick them, that’s for sure,” Kelly said as she got out of bed. Her side ached but it was not a sick pain. In fact, she felt as if the flush had cleared a chronic block from her digestive system. After what she had gone through the previous night, she felt surprisingly energetic. Maybe there were no more stones in her gallbladder. Maybe she was going to stop hurting, in a lot of ways.

She checked her voice mail and there was a message from Tony.

“I miss you, Kelly. Can we have lunch today?”

The two sentences annoyed and thrilled her. They blew her apart from the inside out. She sagged onto the bed and trembled. What nerve, for him to think she would eat with him after what he had done to her. That would be a cold day in hell.

Then again, she thought if she called she would not have the strength to say no. Five months of healing had not made her any less pathetic. She looked at the phone and wept. And here she had thought she was over him, when only the Acid Man could have burned her longing for Tony out of her heart.

She called him and said okay. Lunch in one hour.

Ironically, they met in the same restaurant where she had gone with Matt. That seafood place by the beach. They got a booth outside and the summer sun was as delicious as the menu. She loved fish and was relieved she was now able to eat it again, if only in small bites. She let Tony order for her, he knew what she liked.

“So how have you been?” he asked. It was of course a law of nature that the person who did the dumping always looked great, even though the person who had been dumped had just gone through months of hell. Tony had bulked up—in a good way—and had on a new sports coat. At that moment she wouldn’t have traded him for the world.

Not that she was in a position to trade. That required a relationship. And they didn’t have one of those and could never have one because he had betrayed her and that she could never forgive.

Still, she wanted him so bad.

“I’m fine. How are you? How’s Claire?”

She had not intended to ask that question.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t talked to her in a month,” he said.

“What?” she gasped. Naturally Kelly had seen Anna plenty in the last month, and during the daughter-parent trade-offs, had seen Tony as well—if only for a few awkward minutes. But neither one had said a word about Claire’s departure. Kelly was thrilled and disgusted at the same time. Tony looked out over the ocean.