I should not be surprised I find myself back here, in this apartment. Had I really believed I’d escaped this subterranean hell? That I deserved to be liberated from the smell of old garbage wafting in from the dumpster outside the one window? This place—with the crusty carpet and the water stain on the ceiling in the distinct shape of Ted Cruz’s face—this is what I deserve. This is where I belong.

“Your capacity for self-pity is truly remarkable,” Meredith responds. I am not entirely aware of the fact that I am delivering this monologue out loud until Mere pops her head out of the fridge and glares at me. “And you absolutely should have left. This place is the physical embodiment of depression.”

She’s wearing yellow rubber gloves as she cleans out my refrigerator. My brain still hasn’t fully registered that she’s here, with me, in Portland. That she meant it when I called her crying in the snow outside the Airstream the moment Jack walked away from me, and she told me she was buying a same-day plane ticket on her credit card. Meemaw—the only Kim-Prescott willing to acknowledge my presence after everything—drove me back to town, and I found Meredith on my front steps this morning like the best possible Christmas gift.

One look at my apartment, though, and Meredith seemed less interested in consoling my heartbreak and more interested in taking bleach to what she claims is an OSHA violation.

“I’m not sure you’re aware of this,” Meredith announces as she comes out of the kitchen and plops down on top of my legs, since there is nowhere else to sit as long as I’m lying dejectedly across the entire futon, “but your apartment came equipped with this magical contraption where you can step into it smelling like depression and gas station sushi and step out smelling as fresh as daisies.”

“Can’t shower,” I manage, but even those two words feel like knives clawing at the edge of my throat. “Too sad.”

Meredith pulls back the edge of the duvet to get an uninterrupted view of my face. “You could at least change out of these clothes.”

For some reason, the thought of taking off my clothes from yesterday feels like finally admitting it’s all over. These are the clothes I wore skiing with Jack, these are the clothes I took off in the Singhs’ cabin, the clothes I put back on after we ate biscuits and gravy together. A fresh wave of tears threatens to overwhelm me at the thought of washing them. In my mind, they smell like her.

“Ellie, come on.” She attempts to hoist me up. “You can cry just as easily in the shower as you can on this futon. More easily, really, since the water will wash it all away.”