His face flushed red and more emotions than I could name ping-ponged through me. I hated myself again. I hated him again.

I just wanted to stop feeling like this.

“We must be,” he admitted. “There’s obviously no other explanation for why we keep doing this to each other.”

I nodded. Even though I felt the same way, it still killed to have him say it aloud. I lifted my chin and bravely told him, “I have a lawyer.” I didn’t. But I wanted one. It was time to stop being a coward.

He took a step back like I had physically hit him. The color immediately drained from his face and I thought for a second he was going to be sick. After an eternal minute where we stared each other down in front of noodles, he gritted out, “Good. That’s good.”

Immediately I felt guilty and tried to explain, “We can’t stay separated forever. I figured you would want to move on with your life.”

“Like you do.”

I took a steadying breath and ignored the accusation. “I’m just trying to give us both peace.”

“I’ve heard that about divorce. It’s such a peaceful time for everyone involved.”

Bile rose in my throat. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what, Kate? I’m not the one pushing for divorce.”

“You’re making it seem like it’s all my fault. This is what we both want.” I quickly swiped at a wayward tear and tried not to throw up.

He rocked back on his heels and swallowed thickly. “I keep forgetting that part.”

“I need to go.” Before I broke down in front of him. Before I admitted that this was so much harder than I thought it was going to be. Before I said anything to get that betrayed look off his face.

“Sure.”

“Bye, Nick.”

He stared at me without saying anything. I hadn’t really expected a heartfelt farewell, but I couldn’t stand the hurt in his eyes or the downward curve of his lips because I put them there. I hated the way his wrinkled clothes hung on his body because it meant I wasn’t there to fold his laundry. I hated his empty cart because he didn’t know what he liked to eat or his too-long hair because I hadn’t reminded him to get it cut.

Our lives had once been separate. We had lived more than half of them apart. But over the last seven years they had been woven together, they had become one existence, one life. And now we were tearing everything we’d built to pieces. We were ripping apart at the seams. We were plunging forward in opposite directions.

I was losing half of myself.

And I wasn’t sure there was enough of me to make a whole person again.

“Chocolate cherry,” he suddenly called after me.

I almost tripped when my head whipped back to look at him. “Wh-what?”

“Ice cream. You like chocolate cherry the best.”

I fled the store. I left my cart and groceries behind and I ran for my car. I broke down as soon as the door closed and I didn’t quit until long after I was locked away safely in my house again.

I did make one stop on the way home, though. Even though my face was a mess of dripping mascara and big, fat tears, I couldn’t go home until I had picked up a carton of chocolate cherry ice cream.

We might be different people now.

But he still knew me better than anyone else.

Chapter Six

13.   He stopped trying.

“Kara, what are we doing here?” I put my hand up against an invisible wall and told my feet to stop walking.

They didn’t listen.

Mainly because my best friend had a death grip on my bicep and I was afraid that if I stopped moving, she would rip my arm straight off my body.

“It’s hump day,” she tossed over her shoulder.

As if that explained everything.

“No, it’s Wednesday. And we have to work in the morning.” The neon lights over the bar flickered tellingly. They buzzed and blinked, clearly about to burn out. I stared up at them until I saw spots.

Kara made a disgruntled sound in the back of her throat. “Noooo, it’s hump day and we deserve a reward for making it to the middle of the week!”

Her overly bright tone disguised the raw frustration she felt. It had been a rough couple of weeks for both of us. There must have been something in the drinking water this year because our students were some of the hardest we had ever had to deal with.

I couldn’t do much more than fall face first on my couch after work most days. Grading papers only added to my stress, since most of my students thought they were either comedians or above the rules.

“Fine, let’s reward ourselves someplace else.” I stared at the rickety front door. The screen hung crooked on the hinges and loud music filtered through the murky screen. “Any place else.”

Her Skeletor grip loosened. “At least it’s not the alcohol you have a problem with.”

“Of course not,” I assured her. “In most every circumstance, I’m pro-alcohol.”

She glanced up at the hot pink sign. “Then what do you have against Starla’s?”

“Other than my first date with Nick was here? And that he sometimes still plays here? The bar is full of our co-workers.”

She paused, her tall pointed shoes settling precariously in the gravel lot. “I forgot he used to come here.” She didn’t mention Nick’s band because she rarely made it to a show. Kara tried very hard to be a free spirit, but the truth was her family had instilled high standards in her. Nick’s lack of a full-time job and real-world aspirations bothered her. She might not have been pro-divorce, but she certainly didn’t try to talk me out of it. “Are you afraid Nick is going to be in there?”

I chewed my bottom lip, struggling with the root of my fear. “Not really, no. It’s more the memory of this place. And our co-workers. I hate our co-workers.”

“Well, obviously. Everybody hates their co-workers.”

I wasn’t sure that was accurate, but it was true for me so I stayed silent. I shuffled my leather ankle boots and stared at the chalky gravel debris spread out at my feet. I wanted to be anywhere but here. But even the pissy people I worked with were better than going home to an empty house and the thoughts tumbling through my head. “I thought this would be easier,” I admitted.

She leaned forward until we were just a few inches apart. “You keep saying that, babe. It’s time to change your expectations. Then maybe it will get easier.”

Ignoring the sting of pain, I suppressed a smile because she was right. “Okay.”

“Okay to ‘Kara you’re brilliant and I should hire you as my life coach?’ Or okay to the skeezy bar where our middle-aged fellow teachers are currently getting shit-faced enough to karaoke?” She flashed a huge, toothy grin and resumed her bruising grip on my arm so she could tug me into the bar.

“You didn’t say anything about karaoke!” I choked on the thick musky air that smelled like stale beer and the remnants of burning cigarettes long extinguished. Smoking in restaurants and bars had been outlawed in Chicago, but places like this would forever hold the memories and lingering scent of when it had been legal.

The screen door slammed behind me and I felt it with a finality that reached my bones. I was here. And I was apparently staying.

And if Kara even hinted at the idea of karaoke, I would make her a fake Match.com account and set her up on dates with World of Warcraft gamers that still lived in their moms’ basements. So help me, god.

When Kara and I first started teaching at Hamilton, the faculty preferred to let their hair down at an establishment closer to school. An equally desolate dive bar, O’Connor’s had dollar drinks on Thursdays and STD’s living on the toilet seats. But it caught fire four years ago and the owners had decided to retire instead of rebuild. Anxious to impress my new friends, I had offered up Starla’s as an alternative. Nick and I had been coming here since college, Kara had been drafted in on non-live music nights and it was only a five-minute drive from school.