When we heard the news, we’d both been working nonstop—him gearing up for his book’s release and me with an avalanche of projects that I had been happy to have but happier to be done with. We’d taken a day to enjoy the city, spending the morning at the Met and then walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, getting ice cream on the other side. The whole outing, really, had been an attempt to distract from the news that would be coming from Jeremy’s publisher. And it had been there, at the base of the bridge, ice cream melting down my wrist, that Jeremy had learned that The New York Times had loved his book.

We’d shared a kiss that was sticky and jubilant and then, with a smear of my pistachio on his cheek, Jeremy had gotten down on one knee.

“You inspire me,” he’d said. “Every day we’re together, you inspire me. Please, Chani Horowitz, will you be my wife and my muse for the rest of our lives?”

There had been a crowd and when I’d said yes, everyone had applauded. I’d ducked my hot, happy face into Jeremy’s neck while he beamed at Manhattan. We took a cab to Grand Central to eat oysters because it had felt so New York and so glamorous, and we’d walked home, Jeremy telling me that he loved me over and over and over again.

That memory combined with this current moment is like emotional whiplash. Gabe mistakes the look on my face for something else.

“You were always surprised when I was prepared,” he says.

I refocus, and try to forget the melted-ice-cream kind of love that is now gone. That sometimes feels like it never really existed.

“Always?” I ask. “This is only the second time we’ve ever done this.”

Gabe raises an eyebrow.

I feel like I’m on unsteady ground. Because I don’t know how to think about that weekend. In some ways it seems so long ago; in other ways, it feels like I’ve been haunted by those days—the nights—we spent together.

“You moved back to Montana for a while,” I say.

He nods. “My family wanted me to be close by,” he says. “And Hollywood isn’t great for people in recovery. Even if I was ready to start working again—even if anyone was interested in hiring me—the whole culture around movies, all the parties and events, it involves a lot of alcohol. And other stuff.”

I remember how I had assumed there would be cocaine at his house party.

“You moved to New York,” he says.

“It’s what writers do.”

He probably thought that, after I read about him marrying Jacinda Lockwood in Vegas right after my article about him was published, I ran back to Jeremy, moved to New York with him, and tried to out-happily-ever-after Gabe.

“You hate New York,” he says.