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“That’s what you wanted to say?” I was annoyed.

“I was hoping we could sort of talk more about it,” he said.

I let out a disbelieving, harsh laugh and cast my gaze to the sky. “This is about Opal,” I said to the heavens. “Everything’s about Opal. All of the men who are attracted to me have fucked her. They both loved her. I’m living in Opal’s fucking story.”

“Leo, come on, she’s dead.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that,” I said, and I stalked into the cabin and slammed the door on naked Vincent.

I TOOK A shower before I went to bed, trying to wash away Damian’s scent. And I cried.

I rested my forehead against the sleek wall of the shower, pressing my splayed hands into it as well, and I let the tears come.

I was not sure why I was crying. Maybe it was because Damian had told me that wanting me was obscene while he was still inside me. Maybe it was because of Vincent, standing there, taunting me with that body of his, telling me he would never touch me.

But maybe it was just because my best friend from when I was a teenager was dead.

Maybe it was just that.

After the shower, wrapped in a towel, I met my dad in the living room. He’d just gotten home.

We had a conversation about whether or not I wanted him to come to the will reading in the morning, and I said that I didn’t, that I’d be fine on my own.

It was not that late, so it was too early to go to sleep. I changed into my pajamas and settled in on my bed with Opal’s manifesto.

I wondered why we were calling it a manifesto. I was pretty sure a manifesto was, like, a list of demands or something. Before you did violence, you issued—

No, maybe you sent it out after you did violence, to explain why you’d done it?

I should google it.

I did. Googling it did not make it clear to me. I read the Wikipedia article on it, and it said it was a statement of a person’s belief or something, which seemed really vague.

I turned the page.

I keep wondering when you’re reading this. The further I get into writing it, the surer I get that I can’t look you in the eye, Leo, and you’ll be reading this after I’m dead. And if that’s the case, I’m wondering if he’s fucking you.

Are you and Damian sitting together in my house, on my bed, with my sons down the hall in their beds, reading this together, with my husband looking over your shoulder?

I made a sour face at the page.

I wondered if she was going to say anything about our last conversation. Maybe she didn’t think that was important, but I sure as hell remembered it. She’d been a real fucking bitch to me in that last conversation.

It happened over the phone.

I was at college. Damian had just broken up with me. Also over the phone. He had been all choked up about it, explaining that she was pregnant and that he would have done this in person, except we both knew that would only mean we had sex, because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

My bond sickness, at that point, was in a holding pattern. I would only see Damian every other weekend, and so, I would start to actually recover from it, get my appetite back, not have a headache or cramps, not feel nauseous… And then he’d show up and after he’d leave, it would kick right back up again.

Deep down, I guess I must have known that was a vicious cycle that couldn’t continue, but I didn’t stop it and no one else did.

Well, until Opal did, with her pregnancy.

That was what she said to me when I called her on the phone.

“The way I figure it, Leo, at this point, this is what’s best for you, too. You need to have a clean break from him so that you can get over your bond sickness.”

“Oh,” I said, sarcastic, clutching my phone too tight as I held it against my ear, “so this is for my benefit, is it?”