She hugged her arms to herself and stared at her bare feet. “I met Rose when you were ten. She literally walked in off the street to see if I had time to trim her bangs. I was booked solid that day. I didn’t have time to pee. But I couldn’t say no because I knew … with one look I knew … she was the piece of me that I’d hidden and suppressed my whole life.

“So I cut her bangs. And she came back the following week for a full cut. Then she scheduled a highlight. Then she just showed up one day with a plate of cookies. That led to lunch. Then meeting at the same coffee shop every morning for coffee. A movie here. A concert there. We became friends. She was married and so was I. And I remember the day I was going to say something to her, confront the elephant in the room. I’d worked it out in my head a million times. Maybe I didn’t know what it would mean for my family or her marriage, but I knew even if it didn’t change any of that, it would change me on a cellular level. I knew it would be the most honest moment of my life.”

I didn’t care. I told myself I didn’t care. She lied to Dad. She lied to me. It felt unforgivable, yet I found myself asking her, “What happened?”

Rory glanced up at me. “Well, she had something to say to me that day too. And from the pain in her expression, I thought it was the something I wanted to tell her. The ‘I love you, but I don’t think we can be together, but I just need to tell you.’ I knew … I just knew that’s what I saw in her eyes. But it wasn’t, not that day. No. She needed to tell me she had stage three colon cancer, and her husband was leaving her because he didn’t have the strength to watch her die. She needed someone to take her to treatments and doctor appointments.”

I don’t care. I don’t care.

“And you did?”