Aimee reluctantly agrees and I try to reassure her that it’s good. It’s going to be good.

As we shut the lights off and make our way out of the theater, Aimee says, “Good job today.”

I get the feeling she just wants to fill the aching silence.

“Thanks. The set looks great. Simple but really good. And this theater is amazing. Cooler in person.”

She pauses, and I remember that she doesn’t believe me anymore. It’s so uncomfortable to be uncomfortable with her.

Against my will, faint memories of that last month of Aimee and me together come into my mind. We were at school, sharing a dorm room. We lived in the college residence hall, and it was a constant, miserable party we could never leave. There was always some guy playing guitar with his door open. Weed drifted around the air at all hours of the day. Someone had a cursed karaoke machine that seemed to only have the songs “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down, and “The Reason” by Hoobastank. The lighting was prison-fluorescent. I had saved enough money from working the beach bar that I could have lived in the nice new student housing building, but we stayed there because Aimee couldn’t afford it.

A vague memory of a fight starts to gather.

We wouldn’t have to live here if you had the money to move out with me, I had said.

That’s so shitty, are you really going to bring up how much money you have?

You would have as much money as I do if you’d worked all summer! But you didn’t, you sat around in Theo’s stupid basement watching him play video games!

I suck air in through my teeth now, suddenly remembering how many fights we’d had like that. I wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t right either. If I’d had my therapist back then, she would have encouraged me to break my codependent bonds and live where I wanted to. But the problem was that I wanted to be where Aimee was.

We’d been so snappy with each other that last semester. I never let myself think about it. What possible purpose can it serve to think about all the bad times? Who thinks about those once someone dies?

“See you tomorrow,” she says coolly now before splitting off and heading toward her own home.

She’ll go home to a husband waiting for her, kids waiting for her. A whole little family she built from scratch.

I start to walk home, rain falling in big drops, drenching me. Then I get an idea.

A very bad idea.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Maureen and I run through the rain and I feel like a naughty kid, gleeful in my bad behavior. Now I get why the other me is always stealing this dog.