At exactly 4:14 p.m., the phone in my cup holder came alive.
It didn’t just buzz; it seemed to vibrate with a frantic, desperate energy. *Vanessa Calling.*
I let it ring. One full cycle. Then two. Then three.
When it finally dropped to voicemail, it didn’t stay quiet for more than three seconds before *Derek Calling* appeared on the screen. I watched the screen flash its bright, blue light against the dark leather interior of the car. After Derek came Emily.
I reached down, flipped the phone over so the screen faced the bottom of the cup holder, put the car in reverse, and backed out of the parking space.
The drive back to my home in Lake Forest took forty-five minutes through the gathering twilight. The snow was beginning to fall again, large, heavy flakes that stuck to the windshield before being swept away by the wipers with a steady, rhythmic *click-clack, click-clack*. The city skyline in the distance looked distant, cold, and entirely detached from me.
When I pulled into my driveway, the house was dark. It was a modest, four-bedroom colonial that Arthur and I had bought in the nineties—not a mansion like Vanessa’s, but solid, paid for in cash, and surrounded by old oak trees that had survived a century of midwestern winters.
I walked inside, turned on the kitchen lights, and set my suitcase by the door. The house smelled faintly of cinnamon and old paper—the scent of a life that belonged completely to me.
I made a pot of black coffee, sat down at the oak kitchen table, and turned my phone back over.
There were twenty-two missed calls. Nine from Vanessa, seven from Derek, six from Emily. And at the bottom of the screen, a single, long text message from Emily that had been sent exactly four minutes ago.
