But I still kept flipping back to the story over and over, until finally I just took a screenshot and enlarged the picture. Was that also a club I’d been to? Was Aimee still living the same life she’d been before—same breakfast, same museum, same lover, same cocktail in the same nightclub? Despite myself, even though I didn’t want her friendship anymore, I did feel another lingering pang for those glittering nights when it seemed like we might live forever. This picture was full of purple, pink, gold, all the vibrant colors of a fairy carnival, and the people in the photo … I squinted, my pulse quickening.

On one side of Aimee was a young, dark-haired guy in a white shirt leaning over the bar to place an order. On the other side, a woman, also in a white shirt, also with dark hair, also with her back to the camera, was looking off the side, so that she and the man made a perfect frame for Aimee in her sapphire sheath. But something was sparking my memory, something about the edge of that woman’s face, her hair—the wrong color but the right texture—a certain out-of-placeness to her.

I was paranoid, seeing Lena everywhere.

I dismissed the picture and switched back to my game, but no matter how I tried to focus my attention on the flashing shapes, I lost over and over. It was four o’clock in the morning after a day of travel with a newborn. I just wanted this to be over, and that was why I’d thought I’d seen Lena. I’d conjured her out of my head.

I couldn’t stand it. I opened the picture again just to be sure. Aimee kept smiling, confident and polished, next to maybe-Lena. Maybe just another anonymous city girl, slightly awkward in her pressed white shirt. Maybe a cocktail waitress at the bar or an off-work hostess.

If I’d still had my old phone with all my old contacts, would I have texted Aimee and warned her? Maybe she had other pictures from the bar, ones she’d rejected before she posted this one, ones that would dispel the illusion, revealing a more narrow nose, a heart-shaped face, a woman younger or older or just other than Lena.

I needed a second opinion, from someone who wouldn’t judge me. Michael had enough to worry about. I had to keep any additional burdens away from him. Like I’d said to him in the voice mail message, Grace and I were good, we were hidden away, and my parents were looking after us. Safe and snug, that’s what we were. Not post-stalking one ex-friend and hallucinating another.

I was caught in a state of suspension, torn between what I thought I’d seen and what I knew. My whole body was buzzing.