“It’s just dinner. At his apartment, not even a restaurant.”

“Girl, when a guy like him tells you he loves you, nothing is ‘just dinner’ anymore.”

My thoughts were in shambles as Joy and Taylor raided my closet. Outfits were coordinated on the bed, my jewelry box brought in from the bathroom and rummaged through for the right earrings, shoes lined up like Rockettes waiting to dance. Only Missy held back from the fashion party, sitting instead on the chair in the corner and watching me watch the other two girls parade in and out of my closet. Joy and Taylor were good friends, but Missy knew me best; I could tell she was seeing right through me.

“Movie time!” she finally sang. “Grace looks tired and needs to get her beauty sleep, so let’s put the movie in so she can get to bed before midnight.” The others acquiesced and we moved to the living room. They pulled Lady and the Tramp out of the DVD player, and I nearly cried again, remembering the night one week ago where everything had fallen apart. We’d rented some romantic comedy, but I had to force myself to pay attention and laugh in the right places. At one point I finally excused myself, supposedly for the bathroom, but instead I retreated to my room and slumped on the bed, exhausted from acting normal.

Missy came in after me and perched on the side of the bed, not saying anything for a while. Finally she broke the ice. “Something’s up in that head of yours, Grace, and it’s eating at you, I can tell. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but if it’ll make you feel better to get it out—”

“I’m breaking up with him.” Silence. She nodded slowly, thinking. More silence. This wasn’t helping me. “Well?”

She shrugged. “Well what? I’m not going to offer advice when I don’t even know what’s wrong. Did he do something?”

“No.”

“Say something?”

“No.”

“Not do or not say something?”

I sighed. “No.”

“Something fundamentally wrong with him that God can’t fix and you can’t live with?”

“No.”

“Is it worth it for me to keep guessing or should I just give up?”