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If I came home late—or not at all—it was only a matter of time until they noticed. And I’d rather get ahead of it. Especially because I was pretty sure this Daniel thing was going to keep being a thing. Not a serious thing. Not a forever thing. But definitely a frequent thing, at least for now.

I liked him. He was fun. And the sex had been even better this time, if that was possible.

I didn’t stay for breakfast.

There was only one diner in town, and I didn’t want to advertise the whole “Hey! I woke up here! With him! We had sex!” thing that would be very obvious if we’d shown up together. We weren’t dating—this was a fling. We didn’t need to let everyone know about it.

“I was at a guy’s house last night,” I said finally.

Jessica stopped running. “Well?” she said, not looking in the least bit surprised. “Who is he?”

I put my hands on my hips, catching my breath. “I met him a week ago. I’ve seen him twice. I’m going to keep seeing him, I think.”

“Okay.” She looked at her heart rate on her Fitbit. “And where’d you meet?”

I pulled out my water bottle and took a drink. “I met him after the funeral last week, driving through his town.”

“Have you told Gabby?”

I shook my head. “No. Not yet. You can tell her if you want. It’s not really a big deal. I just figured I should tell you guys before you start to notice me not coming home at night.”

“Does Neil know?”

“Nope,” I said, making a popping noise on the P.

“Good,” she said dryly. “Get all your rage sex out of your system and then you two can get back together with an even score.”

My smile fell. “Jessica, I’m not getting back with him. Ever.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dismissively, stretching her hamstring.

“Jessica…”

I gave myself a long moment.

“Do you know what he used to do?” I asked, looking over at her. “He used to tell me I smelled bad.”

She wrinkled her forehead at me. “What?”

“Right before we’d walk into a party or a restaurant or something he’d lean in and go, ‘Did you take a shower today?’ And you know me. I’m compulsively clean. I’d be half an hour out of a bubble bath, and he’d wrinkle his nose and tell me my deodorant wasn’t working. I’d go to kiss him, and he’d turn his face and ask me if I’d had onions for dessert.”

“You don’t smell,” she said. “I would tell you.”

“Yeah, well, I was so freaked about it, I had Bri give me a full physical to see if something was wrong. Came back with nothing. I went to the dentist to see if I had an issue with my mouth, same thing, nothing.

“He wouldn’t touch me or kiss me. I was taking three, four showers a day at the end, brushing my teeth constantly. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And you know what my therapist said? She said it’s a form of abuse. That he was purposely lowering my self-esteem.”

Someone on a bike chimed their bell, and we stepped onto the grass shoulder. We waited for them to whiz past us before I continued.

I rubbed my forehead. “It’s so much to unpack, Jessica. I feel like I’ve toppled down a therapy rabbit hole over the last six months.

“It was good in the beginning. He was nice. We got serious, bought the house. He was kind of cranky sometimes, but it wasn’t bad. Then he started making these little comments about how I looked. Didn’t that used to fit better? Why do you look so tired? Joking that if he’d known how much I was going to let myself go once we were living together, he would have never moved in with me—”

“Let yourself go?” She sounded annoyed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without lipstick.”

“Yeah, well, it just kept getting worse. After a while he wouldn’t even talk to me in the morning until I had my face on. I’d wake up and he’d lean in and sniff and shake his head and then he’d be irritated all day like I’d picked a fight with him. I started getting up before he did to get ready. Six a.m. and I’m showered and in full makeup. And if I didn’t do it and he made some comment I’d find myself apologizing, like his reaction was completely reasonable. He was always in these bad moods. I never knew which Neil I was going to get. One day he’s cooking me a nice dinner, my favorite bottle of wine, and the next he’s mad at me for God knows what because he won’t even speak to me. It was like he liked me on eggshells. Like as long as I was running after him, begging him to tell me what was wrong, what I could do better, he was happy.

“I could never relax, I started getting depressed, I had anxiety all the time. I was miserable and I felt totally trapped while at the same time feeling grateful that he was with me, because who else would want me?”