I followed the line of the barbell in my ear with my fingertip. There was comfort in the dull throb. It was a vague and minor echo of the ache in my chest. Hayden had been right about the effect of physical pain as a release for the emotional. The initial sting of the needle as it slid through skin and cartilage reminded me I’d been through worse and survived. So far. I imagined the tattoo would be infinitely more purifying, an etching of pain into skin; a release for the agony I carried with me.

The sound of my phone ringing shocked me out of my self-flagellation. I was perilously close to cracking. I took a deep breath and another, and another, pushing emotions down, locking them away. I looked at the screen, but the number came up as unknown.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Tenley.”

Nausea was the first physical response, followed by irrational fear. “Trey.”

“I haven’t heard back from you. I expect you received my letter.”

Trey didn’t deal in preliminaries; he got right to the point. That he referred to the thick document as a “letter” bordered on ridiculous. There was no point in calling him out on it. In his mind it had been the most logical course of action, even if it was insensitive and hurtful.

“I got it.”

“So you’ve signed it, then. My lawyer should be expecting it shortly. The end of the week?” I could hear the condescension layered under the placid tone.

“Not exactly.”

“What’s the delay?”

“I’ve been busy. I haven’t had a chance to review it.” I couldn’t tell him the truth. He wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t face returning to Arden Hills to deal with this. All of our possessions were in that house, half of them still in boxes waiting to be unpacked. I couldn’t go through Connor’s things yet. The wounds were too fresh. I was just finding my footing; if I went back, I’d be at ground zero.

“Well, set aside some time, Tenley. There’s no point in prolonging this.”

“I’ll try and look at it this week.”

“You’ll need to do better than that. I expect a signed copy of the document on my lawyer’s desk early next week. That property is rightfully mine.”

His patience with me was wearing thin, and I had none for him. “Not according to the will.”

“Watch your tone,” he warned. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing in Chicago, playing at being a big girl. Why Connor insisted on indulging your silly ambitions at some second-tier college, I’ll never understand. Tell me, what else did you manipulate him into beside that and the wedding?”

“I didn’t manipulate Connor into anything. He was supportive.”

“Well, he’s not here to pander to you anymore and I don’t have his level of tolerance. Get the paperwork signed and send it back to me.”

A knock at the door saved me from saying something I would regret. I opened it, half-expecting Trey to be on the other side, and almost burst into tears of relief when he wasn’t.

“Howdy, neighbor, I thought you might want a drink.” Sarah stood in her blond, leggy glory, holding a magnum of red wine. The smile on her glossed lips fell, as she processed my distressed expression.

“I have to go. I have company,” I said into the phone, hanging up before Trey had a chance to say anything else.

When it rang again almost immediately, I shut it off, unwilling to provide Trey with another opportunity to tear me down.

“You must be psychic.” I gave Sarah a shaky smile and stepped aside to invite her in.

“I prefer intuitive. You okay?”

“I’m fine, just some legal stuff.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Okay. But if you change your mind, I’m happy to listen.”

“Thanks.”

She walked past me and deposited the wine on the counter. While I rooted around in the silverware drawer for the bottle opener I never used, she checked out the contents of my living room.

“You have a lot of books,” she noted, trailing the spines with a manicured nail. She lifted a work of fiction from the shelf, scanned the cover and put it back, then picked up another.

“I like to read,” I offered by way of explanation.

“Kind of figured that.” She gave me a wry smile. “So . . . no boyfriend?”

I shook my head, popped the cork, and poured two glasses of red.

“Girlfriend?”

That got my attention. “Uh, no. Why?”

“Just curious, you never know.” She pursed her lips in thought as I handed her a glass of wine. “Fuck buddy?”

“Pardon?”

“You know, a booty call. Someone you default to when your battery-operated friends aren’t quite sufficient.”

I was glad I hadn’t taken a sip of wine yet, because I would have sprayed it all over her. Hayden immediately came to mind, but I didn’t want him in a casual way. I kept that to myself. “No. There’s no one.”

Sarah sat on the couch, pensive. I dropped down at the other end and cupped the glass in my hands, waiting for her to go on.

“But you want there to be?” she asked.

“I’ve got too much stuff going on. I don’t need to add relationship drama to the mix.”

“So there is someone you’re into,” she pressed.

“It’s not you if that’s what you’re wondering,” I said snarkily, veering the topic in a different direction, away from Hayden. My feelings surrounding him were too discordant to talk about. More so after the call from Trey.

“I wasn’t, but I appreciate you letting me know.”

“You’re the one who asked if I had a girlfriend,” I said defensively. I couldn’t tell if she was serious.

“It seemed like a valid question.” She sipped her wine to hide her grin. I tossed a pillow at her. She deflected it with her arm. “Anyway, I get not wanting relationship drama. There’s this guy who keeps coming to my work and asking me out. It’s frustrating.”

“He’s not your type?”

“No. Well, yes, actually. He’s totally my type, which is the problem. Where I work, it’s . . .” She made a face and shook her head. “Anyway, he’s got a reputation, hangs out with some unsavory characters. He’s always so nice to me, but the red flags are there, ya know?”

I did. My red flag worked across the street. “So tell him you’re not interested.”

“I have, but he keeps coming back. He’ll give up eventually, I guess.”

“Maybe.”

We lapsed into silence for a moment. Her smile dropped, and she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You know how you told me you have bad dreams?”

I nodded.

“Do you have them a lot?”

“Why?”

“I know we don’t know each other all that well, but maybe you want to tell me about them?” she asked, her tone gentle, prompting. When I didn’t respond right away, she pressed on. “Lord knows they have to be pretty damn bad for you to scream the way you do in your sleep.”

The mood in the room went from light to serious. I felt ill. The worry she might hear me had been justified. My embarrassment was tempered with relief. Despite the inner turmoil, I wanted to tell someone, unload some of the burden.

“It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can talk about it,” she said.

“I liked the other topic better.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

I sighed heavily, unsure whether this would split the wound wide open or give me a modicum of peace. I wanted it to be the latter, but I feared the former. The events that brought me here couldn’t be undone. Up until now, sharing them seemed more torturous than helpful. Things had changed, though. I had changed. Living in Arden Hills in the aftermath of the crash had been difficult. I’d shut down as a protective measure. Allowing my pain a voice meant acknowledging my reality.

The shock of loss kept me blissfully numb for a while. I felt like I was submerged in a pool of thick, viscous liquid, viewing the events from below the surface. Nothing was clear, nothing felt right. In fact, I barely felt anything at all. I lived in a perpetual void, waiting for the numbness to wear off.