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“I’ll get us a taxi.”
“Thanks,” she says. “Want to come on up, too?”
“Yes,” I say. “But only if you want me to.”
She exhales softly and leans her shoulder against mine. “Yes, please. Let’s have at least some fun out of this evening.”
Our taxi driver starts off talkative, but takes one long look in the rearview mirror and doesn’t ask us another question about how our night has been. We must be quite the pair. One somber and the other quiet, with red-ringed eyes.
Milo is nowhere to be seen when we arrive in her apartment and Sophia heads straight to the kitchen. I lean against the doorframe and watch her make a cup of tea.
“Hungry?” I ask.
She shrugs, and gives me a tired smile. “Not really, but I think I’ll get hungry when there’s food on the table, if you know what I mean?”
I open my phone. “Yeah, I do. Anything in particular you’re craving?”
“Pasta or pizza. No, actually, I want a burger, a proper one, with fries. Is that okay?”
“Yes, absolutely. Seems like there’s a place around the corner that makes truffle burgers.”
“That sounds delicious.”
I place the order and then I stand in her kitchen and watch her put the pieces of her injured heart together. She does it gracefully. Minute by minute, the tension starts to leak out of her shoulders.
We sit on her couch and she props her head up with a hand. “How do you feel?” I ask.
“All right,” she says. “I won’t fall apart again. I promise.”
“It’s okay if you do.”
She smiles, a little ruefully. “Thanks. But I know that was… a lot back there. I’m sorry about it.”
I sigh. “Please don’t apologize.”
“God, I have to.” She puts a hand over her face, eyes closing. “I’m so embarrassed about all of it.”
“Don’t be.”
“I wasn’t supposed to react like that. I didn’twantto react like that.”
“That was outside of your control,” I say, and feel the sour taste of truth in those words. It’s not her fault. Not in the least. And I had always known, deep down, that she was still in love with Percy. Hadn’t I?
She sighs. “I guess I ruined our final date, huh?”
“You didn’t ruin it,” I say. “Your asshole of an ex-husband did.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Why is New York the smallest town in the world, when it’s actually one of the biggest?”
“I shouldn’t have taken us to Salt,” I say. Anywhere else, and this night would have ended differently. Anywhere else, and she wouldn’t have broken apart, sobbing in a public restroom.
Sophia shrugs. “They have great food. I understand why you booked it.”
“Yeah.”
“So what happens now?” She glances at the clock on her windowsill. “At midnight, when our weeks are officially up. Will I turn back into a pumpkin and you into the untouchable prince?”
“In the analogy you crafted,” I say, “I think I was the princess.”
