“Just tell me now. I’m sure it won’t take long.” Nothing takes long with you lately. I am being so passive-aggressive that I almost wish I was recording this. I could send it to my mom later. I think she’d be proud.

“Okay,” Sibby says slowly. “Well, I know I said the end of the summer.” She ends it there.

I—quietly, imperceptibly—let out the sigh.

“But a different unit in the same building opened, and, Meg, it’s so much better. There’s this window in the kitchen, and—”

“Those chopsticks are mine,” I blurt, and she blinks quickly. “Never mind. Take the chopsticks. I don’t care.”

“Meg, come on.” Her voice is so gentle. But what right does she have to be gentle with me, when it’s been death by a thousand cuts for me in this apartment for months? I press a thumb to my temple, rub my fingers over my still-damp forehead, feel the soreness of the pimples assert themselves. There’s a dull throb of exhaustion in my shoulders, my back, my feet. The truth is, we both know I’m not going to argue with her. Especially not about this. If she wants to go now, she should go. Given the way I grew up—my parents white-knuckling their entire marriage from the time I was born, a “staying together for the kid” cautionary tale—I know that more than anyone.

“Listen, it’s been a lousy day.” I reach down, pick up my discarded bag, try to seem casual and not like I’m thinking of my efficient wash-and-cry coming right up. “So if not the end of summer ... ?”

She looks down at her noodles. So this is the hard part, then. I tighten my already tight shoulders in preparation.

“We can get in at the end of June.”

“That is . . . soon.” Tough-to-find-a-non-creepy-subletter soon, and anyway, the hope was that by the time Sibby moved out, I wouldn’t need a subletter right away. I’d have landed the Make It Happyn job.

A fresh wave of anger rises within me, and I feel desperate to get away from her, to shove it down.

“I was thinking I could call my dad,” Sibby says. “Then I could pay you for the rest of the summer, even though I’m leaving earlier than I said.”

It’s my turn to blink in surprise. Sibby broke financial ties with her dad about four years ago, when he’d come to the city for a conference. She’d met him for dinner and a show, some musical Sibby had already seen three times, and afterward at the hotel bar, Mr. Michelucci told Sibby he couldn’t see her up there, not ever. “You’re not like those girls up there, Sibyl,” he’d said to her. “You don’t have the voice or the face or the body. It’s time to get serious.”