I spend another night alone, struggling to fall asleep, and even find myself wishing Aimee would turn back up. I’m sure there’s a blouse or two she could take as recompense for the company. I consider it, but I don’t call or text Mary anymore. I’m tired of pandering. I’m hurt and I’m angry.

In the morning, Gary calls to say he got a three-word text from her—let me be. The part of me that was quietly panicking more with every day that passed finally breathes a sigh of relief. And then the rage bubbles up like carbonation, a steady fizz that grows and grows until it is flowing over my edges like a shaken soda can. I’m furious that she’s put us—me—through this. It’s childish and petty. She’s probably living it up in a room at the Monteleone, drinking champagne by the Carousel Bar with a rotation of strange men while Gary and I chew our nails and beg her forgiveness. Gary says she’ll come around, but I’ve decided to stop caring when she does. I leave a note on the counter saying where I’m going, then tear it up.

“You sure about this?” Daniel asks as I settle into his passenger seat.

I nod. “It’s time. I need to be done with all this.” I need to be done with her.

I tell Daniel about the conversation with Dr. Angela and my mother’s text to Gary.

“At least you know she’s okay,” he says as we pull away.

It should be enough, but it’s not. Angry as I am, for the first time in ten long years, I feel her absence more like a cold ache in the chest and less like a hot blister over the skin.

It is warm today in our small town, mine and Moony’s. That’s what Moony called it—“warm”. It’s too warm out today, Cat, wait till evening. Or, How can they stand to play out there when it is so warm? But the truth is, it is always more than warm. It is hot the way only Louisiana can be hot. The kind of hot that comes with the loud hum of cicadas and fat, stripe-legged mosquitos and a cloud of wet air. I am standing on her front lawn watching two men with giant sweat rings on their blue T-shirts that say Guidry Moving carry a long, pine dresser through the front door. Her box is clutched to my stomach, where it is causing my own T-shirt to stick to my skin with damp.

I cannot do this. Not with these people moving in. I’m not sure what I’ll do with Moony now. I look to Daniel.

“No pressure,” he says gently.