Lou was halfway through her first piece of pie when she cleared her throat and put her fork down. I thought she was going to make some excuse, say she had to leave, and I’d know that I’d embarrassed myself beyond measure, that I’d ruined any chance I had of being her friend. Instead, she told me a sad story of her own.

The details don’t matter much—they’re always the same. A big town and a well, he’s not so bad man and too much love that he didn’t want, a hard fall from grace. When she was done, she finished eating her slice, and I ignored the fork quivering as it came up to her mouth. Some hurts don’t let you go.

Later, with the girls, she’d coach me how to win trust. “Use her own story in a pinch,” she’d say. “Change the details but give her something she can relate to. Then think of your saddest birthday. Tears, right away.” And it was true. Not one of my girls noticed when I spoon-fed her own story back to her, if I did it right. If I smiled, if I touched her hand gently and told her, without words, I hear you, I care. And by the time they left our business, they had a new story—a better story—to tell. I’d helped give them that.

I surprised us both by reaching out and touching her wrist. She nodded at me, fast, like we’d established something. Lou rubbed her wrist, then held my gaze for a beat too long, long enough for me to wonder if I’d done the wrong thing by touching her.

“You know,” she said, tapping the ash from the cigarette onto her gooey, empty plate, “you seem really sad about it.”

“Are you going to tell me I’m better off without him?” My voice was more of a squeak than I wanted it to be. It sounded like the sort of thing my mother would’ve said, all well-meaning sugar in her voice, ignoring the fact that I couldn’t stop crying.

“I’m saying I think you’ve got a lot to be pissed off about,” she said, her eyes very green through the plume of smoke drifting toward me. “It seems to me like you should be angry, not sad. You’ve got nothing left to lose here, y’know? That makes you dangerous. Especially if you’re angry.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I shrugged and dipped back down into my pie. But I couldn’t get those words out of my head. Dangerous? Me? To who?