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She missed me.

She was thinking about me.

She loved me.

Not a single one of those things stopped being true when she ended us. And that was the most tragic thing of all.

“How have you been?” she asked into the silence.

“Fine,” I lied.

A long pause.

“Did you save up enough for the house?”

I let out a breath. “Yeah. I did.”

“You did?” She sounded genuinely happy for me. “That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, the Etsy store and Instagram page helped a lot. So thank you.”

I could picture her nodding.

“You want to know how I did it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I raised my prices. A lot. Like, twelve thousand dollars for that lightning strike table.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I realized when you hit zero fucks, that’s when negotiations begin.”

“What does that mean?” A small smile in her voice.

“It’s just that I didn’t care if they sold or not. When you don’t care, everything’s on your terms. They can take it or leave it. It doesn’t matter to you, so ask for whatever the hell you want.”

“Ahhh. Well, I always thought you were undercharging. I’d pay that for one of your tables.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a Kardashian, so…”

She gasped. “I am not a Kardashian.”

I smiled a little. “Have you seen your house?”

She made a playful indignant noise.

“You even have a surgeon living in the basement.”

She let out a laugh. The sound made me feel happier than I’d felt in weeks.

It amazed me how easily we just started again. But then it didn’t. Because if I didn’t see her for twenty years, it would still be like this. It was like this from the moment I’d met her, and it would always be like this between us. This was part of it. This is what made it easy.

This is what made it hard.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“In my room. In my bed.”