Everything’s been searched. They haven’t trashed the place, but so many things are not quite where they should be, and the whole apartment has the aura of being manhandled.

I turn music up loud in my auditory implants and try to set it to rights. I help the bots clean. I throw out the meal I spent all afternoon making, my appetite gone. I order a NutriPaste from the replicator and force the tasteless goop down my throat to keep my blood sugar even. I focus on cleaning with every fiber of my being, the pulse of the beats of scrubbing driving out all thought.

When everything is perfect again, I can no longer deceive myself.

I stand in the middle of my silent, spotless kitchen. My eyes snag on the cookie jar on the counter.

Tila and I have keys to each other’s places, of course. Our schedules have always been different—I work the standard nine to three, whereas Tila works nights. When we meet for dinner, it’s actually closer to her breakfast. When she first moved out eight months ago, I found it really difficult, and I wasn’t good at hiding it. I felt betrayed. When we fight, we know the perfect way to wound the other, but it’s like hitting a mirror—the glass cuts us just as deeply.

After that first, terrible fight, she left me an apology note in the cookie jar. Problem is, she eats more cookies than I do, so it took me three or four days to find the note. It worked, and I forgave her, not that I can ever stay mad at her for long. Over the next few weeks, she kept leaving notes in the cookie jar, dropping them off on the way to work for me to find on the way home. They were silly, full of in-jokes and puzzles. Then when she started acting more distant, working more hours at the club, they stopped. I haven’t even checked the cookie jar in days.

I open it. There are no cookies, only a few scattered crumbs, but there is a note. I unfold it with trembling fingers.

T,

I’m doing something possibly dangerous tonight.

If everything goes well, I’ll come here and take this note away before you find it. If you do find this, and you don’t know where I am, then everything has gone belly up.

And I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.

T

I blink, my eyes unfocused. She has kept something from me. For days? For weeks? For months? Lying to me, doing … whatever it is she’s been doing, and leaving me in the dark.