She tells Jules everything. It’s a strange relief to share this with someone who isn’t Santi. She can tell it like a story, without being interrupted, without his perspective intruding on her own. Through it all, she keeps her eyes closed, not daring to look at Jules’s face.

When she’s finished, she waits for Jules to speak. Instead, she hears her shift in the bed. When she opens her eyes, Jules is sitting up, facing away from her.

“Jules.” The first stab of panic. “Talk to me.”

Jules doesn’t move. Thora sits up, takes her shoulders to turn her around. Jules stares at her. She’s not angry. It’s worse than that: her face is blank, confused. Gently, she detaches Thora’s hands. “I don’t know what to say.” She stands, starts getting dressed.

Thora’s heart freezes. She remembers another night, pushing her way through the New Year’s crowd. Santi told her about him and Héloïse. I tried to explain how I was feeling. She told me she didn’t know what to say. Right after that, she left.

“Jules.” Thora follows her wife out of the bedroom, into the nursery. Jules bundles Oskar into his carrier. “You’re not—” Thora tries to say. “You can’t—”

Jules looks at her, heartbroken. “I can’t leave him with you. You’re not yourself.”

Thora can’t help it. She starts laughing, painful gasps that rack her like labor pains. “Who am I, then?” She follows Jules into the bathroom, back to the hallway, to the door of the flat. “Please. Jules. Tell me who I am.”

Jules shakes her head and closes the door behind her.

Thora gasps. She’s drowning again, icy water dragging her under. She swears, gets dressed, and runs down the stairs, fumbling for her phone to call Santi.

He answers immediately. She’s not sure he sleeps anymore. “Jules,” she says, as she makes it down the last flight. “She’s leaving. It’s your fault. You have to come and fix this. You have to—”

“Thora, slow down.” She hates how calm he sounds. “Where are you?”

“At the flat. You have to, she’s—” Thora hangs up when she sees Jules already in the car, Oskar buckled into his seat in the back. The engine starts. Thora stops, frozen. Then she makes a choice. She runs for her bike. It’s absurd; she’ll never catch up. But the other choice, to stand and watch the best life she has known recede into the distance like it never was, is no choice at all.

Five minutes later, lying in the gutter, Thora shakes with pain and rage.