I woke to the sound of my cell phone ringing. It was my former colleague, Lana. She hadn’t called me for three months. For a while she’d been calling every day. She found out I’d slept with the man she was dating. I’d had no idea they were in a relationship. I only saw them together twice. One night, about six months earlier, I’d bumped into Christopher at an overpriced bar on Vanderbilt, and we started talking about photography. He wanted to walk me home and he ended up spending the night. I hadn’t talked to him since.

When Lana discovered what had happened, she said some vile things to me. She called me a whore and a parasite. It wasn’t worth my time to fight with someone like her. She projected her own dishonesty and disloyalty onto other people. Years earlier she’d betrayed my trust, so our friendship was already on an inevitable decline. In the last couple of years, I’d barely seen her. It was even a stretch to describe her as a friend.

Lana’s call went to voicemail. She rang again and it went to voicemail again.

I sat down at the kitchen counter with a cup of black coffee and a piece of toast and surveyed the living room and kitchen. I owned three expensive pieces of furniture: a solid rosewood coffee table and two leather chairs. The kitchen cabinets were well made, with high-quality chrome hardware, though I would have preferred polished nickel. My large walnut cutting board, prominently displayed on the kitchen counter, contrasted beautifully with the white Caesarstone countertops. But recently such details that had pleased me in the past failed to lift my spirits. I couldn’t help comparing myself and my apartment to the Straubs and their house. The contrast left me feeling profoundly inadequate. I found it impossible to shut down the voices in my head that shouted out my inferiority.

Lately my brightest moments were derived from my personal photoshopping endeavors, particularly the ones involving the Straubs. I would usually allow myself to devote several hours to those projects later in the day, as soon as I’d finished my work. It was something to look forward to.