It’s easier to be angry at Gabe for what happened ten years ago. Not just the embarrassment I felt in realizing that I’d been sucked into his magnetic pull and spit out. But I can also fault him for the way I can never tell if the success I have is due to my own skills or because of him. I heap all that blame on him. I lean hard into those feelings—those safe, powerful, angry feelings.

“You’re still renting the same place?” I ask.

The words are only slightly bitter.

“I bought it,” Gabe says. “You were right. I didn’t need something big and grand.”

We’re standing in his front yard, like two neighbors. Like I might have stopped by for a cup of sugar or tea and we’re catching up.

I realize, once we’re in the house, that I’m looking for something.

Or rather, I’m looking for someone.

Gabe’s dog.

She had been a puppy—just a dozen weeks old when we met ten years ago. A literal lifetime in dog years. It seems entirely possible that she’s gone now.

I follow Gabe through the house, heading to the same place we’d gone that first time I’d been here: the kitchen. On the way, I don’t see anything that indicates a dog lives here. There’s no dog dish, no leash hanging by the door, no dog bed in the living room.

I look out into the yard but it’s empty as well.

It makes me unbearably sad, the passage of time hitting me like a load of bricks. Ten years. Ten years have passed.

So much has happened. Madison at the restaurant has a ten-year-old kid. Gabe’s divorced, sober, and planning a comeback. I’m divorced, desperately wishing I wasn’t sober at the moment, and too scared to write anything outside the familiar brand I’ve created for myself.

And now Gabe’s dog is dead too.

I want to cry.

“Water?” Gabe asks.

“Sure,” I say, my voice embarrassingly thick.

I clear my throat before I speak again.

“I can’t stay,” I remind him.

It’s probably the fifth time I’ve said that. At this point, I don’t know if I’m telling him or telling myself. The addict’s version of “just one more.”

The truth is I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what this is.

I take the water Gabe offers me and the two of us drink, standing in his kitchen, memories of our last time here closing in on me until I feel like I can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says.