“Lots of things went wrong between us. The trouble was that it wasn’t one big thing at one given time. The erosion of our relationship started so slowly, so incrementally, that we didn’t even notice. We stopped communicating properly. We stopped looking forward to seeing each other after a long day at work. We stopped hanging out. We used to be so good at just being together, doing nothing special, just chatting. And because it didn’t happen overnight, we barely noticed.”

“And then I barely noticed when you met someone else.”

“I always figured you knew but were waiting for me to say it out loud,” Rebecca says.

“I guess on some level I did know, but I was afraid to confront it. I was afraid to do anything, really. In that respect, I fucked up massively.”

“Relationships are complex partnerships. We were lucky. Ours ran smoothly for so long.”

“Until it didn’t,” I say. Ever since she left, I’ve been trying to more closely pinpoint the time when things started going awry between us. Unlike Rebecca, I’m convinced it’s not the lack of action between the sheets. I see that more as a consequence of the distance that was increasing between us. But I’m willing to try to see things from her perspective.

“I believed it would never end between us,” I say on a sigh. I glance at her and I can’t help but compare her to Camille. They’re not night and day exactly, but Camille’s overall demeanor is much gentler, more elegant. Rebecca isn’t large in body, but she is in personality. She can bulldoze anyone with one well-aimed phrase.

“For the longest time, so did I,” she says. “It’s the core belief of any relationship.”

I clear my throat. “Is that how you feel about Julie now?” Even though I’m in the throes of falling in love myself, just speaking the other woman’s name still stings.

“I never expected to fall for her the way I did.” Rebecca’s shoulders hunch. “It all started with the most innocent flirting.”

“That’s how most things start. And I’ve never known flirting to be innocent.”

“Look, Zoya.” She leans over and puts her elbows on her knees. “I know I really hurt you. And that’s something I’ll have to learn to live with. But it happened. And I believe it happened for a reason. For many reasons. I’m not asking for you to get to know her, just… give her a chance. She’s not the devil.”

I shake my head. “She knew you were in a committed relationship. She probably got off on it.”

Now it’s Rebecca’s turn to shake her head. “It wasn’t like that at all. It took forever for us to move on to the next step. Once we did, we were both wracked with guilt.”