Who was she? Jack’s previous girlfriend, perhaps? Unless...no. No. Did he have a wife and kids in Maine? He’d told me he’d never married, but was it true? What if he’d abandoned them to get out of alimony payments? As the last few days had passed, I’d figured in time—lots of time, and then some—I might accept I’d been going out with a liar, but with a cheater and a deadbeat dad? He’d seemed so sincere, faithful and committed. Had my rose-tinted glasses been Coke-bottle thick?

I clutched the library book to my chest, understanding the damn thing hadn’t provided me with answers. If anything, I had more questions than before. I couldn’t tell Heron or Stevens about this, couldn’t stomach her looks of sympathy and his thinly veiled amusement at how I’d been played.

My heart sank. I wanted to go back to the apartment, get all of Jack’s belongings and set them on fire, watch them burn. He’d lied to me. About everything. I’d never know who he truly was because—and this time I allowed myself to finish the thought—he wasn’t coming back. Jack had drowned. He was gone. I’d never, ever see him again, and in that moment, I hated him. Detested him for putting me through this. If he’d trusted me enough to share his secrets, if he’d told me the truth about who he was, I’d either have walked away when we met, or stuck with him, leaving me free to mourn the man I’d loved. Sam had been right about one thing: it was unfair, it was all so completely unfair, and, damn it, I wanted and deserved to find some answers.

In no time at all I was on social media, hunting for profiles, and after another while I’d found two women in Maine named Maya Scott. As I had no idea what the person I was searching for looked like, I selected the first profile. I scrolled through her posts, from which I determined she was around forty, had a profound dislike for cottage cheese and loved to bake anything with chocolate. I watched videos of her three cats called Skippy, Zippy and Boo, fast-forwarded through her daughter’s multiple piano recitals because they only showed her hands, and made a start on the photos. I took my time, zooming in on each one, trying to determine if the back of a head or a half-cropped-out arm belonged to Jack. An hour went by, and still nothing.

The first profile exhausted, I selected the next, soon realizing this one wouldn’t take nearly as long. This Maya Scott enjoyed her privacy, and most of what she shared wasn’t set to public. She hadn’t posted for quite some time, either. Then again, neither had I.