Gemma and Lucy stay behind to manage cleanup with the hired staff while Nick and Harley walk me back to the brownstone. The closer we get, the more my stomach threatens to heave its contents all over the frozen sidewalk. I can’t believe what I said to him, the words and the hurt in his eyes looping in my mind like a GIF on repeat.

“Do you want us to come in?” Harley walks me right to the front door, holding on tightly to both of my forearms, as if she can tell I’m on the verge of collapse.

I shake my head, unable to make any words come out of my mouth.

“Call me tomorrow.” She jogs back down the steps to where Nick waits for her.

They both stand there until I get inside the house. As soon as the door closes behind me, I beeline upstairs and to my room, not wanting to chance a run-in with Jack. I think we both need to sleep on the events of the night, which is, you know, a huge downside to living with your boyfriend, when you find out he’s a liar and your response is to say the worst possible thing right to his face. Too much has happened, too much has been said, for anything productive to come of more conversation tonight.

Turns out, I didn’t need to worry. There’s a folded piece of paper, along with my phone, on my pillow.

Going to Connecticut for a while. —Jack

I flip the paper over in my hand because surely that can’t be all he has to say. But it is.

I head to the bathroom and turn the shower as hot as it will go. As it scalds me, turning my skin lobster red, I replay the conversation, over and over and over, until I’m not sure who to be more mad at, me or Jack.

You, of course.

How could you say something like that?

Cut so deep and go so low.

You never deserved him.

Shutting my eyes, I attempt to drown out the voice. But this time, the voice is right.

Back in my bed, tucked under a comforter that smells like Jack, I open up my laptop and get to googling.

I don’t find out much more than what I gathered from the woman at the party and from Jack himself. Jackson Bennett rose to an insane level of popularity in a ridiculously short amount of time. And while there were multiple blog posts and articles written after his disappearance, speculating on his true identity and why he vanished, no one seems to know what really happened to the elusive painter.

But I do. Because despite this lie, this omission really, he let me know him. All for me to turn his pain into a weapon against him.