Instead Michael would still see Wyatt at work, maybe they would even be friends, but Wyatt’s friendship would be tinged with pity. He and Elizabeth were probably already talking about it while they loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the counters. “He’s a nice guy, but Kacy … what do you think is wrong with her?” Maybe they’d think it was drugs, or a death in the family, or just call me crazy.

And they’d look at each other and shrug, glad to forget about my problems. But Michael would forever be “poor Michael” in their minds.

A nice guy with a messed-up wife.

The next day Michael was back at work and I was home alone, stuck with my own company and a shame hangover from the previous night.

I attacked the last of the moving boxes as if I could redeem myself. This house was bigger than our old apartment, and our furniture looked as unmoored as I felt, with just a little too much space between a chair and its end table. Our bookshelves were filled with my art books and Michael’s engineering texts as well as the history books we both loved. But the shelves themselves sat isolated, like a single painting in the middle of a wall.

Maybe I just hated open-floor-plan homes. Even when I tried to fill the empty spaces, it didn’t work.

The kitchen cabinets were uncrowded, each glass set inches away from the next. Our master closet was the size of a loft in Manhattan, every article of clothing dangling untouched by the one beside it.

And as I stood in the middle of all that space, the only box left was the one Michael didn’t want me to see.

The one with any reminder of Aimee.

When you break up with a guy, there’s sometimes that dramatic scene where you dump his stuff into a cardboard box and meet up for a hostile exchange of goods. Your crappy T-shirt for my water bottle. My second-best running shoes for your favorite CD. And maybe I cracked the case on the way over, because who even listens to CDs anymore?

But there’s no protocol like that for ex-friends. And we hadn’t broken up, not exactly.

I had known she’d started seeing a new guy. There were long gaps between texts I’d sent and her replies. Aimee would show up at work not quite as put-together as usual. And she wouldn’t tell me who it was.