“She's just a place to go for now. It isn't what you think.”

“Should that make me feel better? That you didn't even fall in love with someone else? You left me for nothing?”

“I didn't say that…”

“Romance is fantasy, you know. You think there's a special woman out there for you when it really all amounts to the same thing, a woman, a sexual attraction, connection. Doesn't matter what woman. It might as well be me as her.”

“I need something different in my life.”

“Question,” Gretchen said. “If you don't love me, how do I feel about you?” She started crying, but really it was her leg killing her now. The dull pain sharpened and struck, and the long bone that had broken burned inside her leg like a molten sword. She took her other half pill with a piece of leftover bread, and pushed him away when he fluttered around her, looking angry. He hovered between her and the window, casting shadows on the bed.

On the other side of the curtain, a nurse announced that they had squeezed Katie in next for surgery. With much effort and many encouragements from her parents, a crew of family and hospital personnel helped her onto the gurney. They took her away. The room quieted for a moment.

“The squeaky wheel,” Craig said dismissively. “Wonder what other poor schmuck will have to wait while they fix her miserable, self-abused breast.” He walked to the foot of her bed and held the metal bar, looking at her. “If you'll get ready, we'll go. If not, I'm leaving.”

She knew he didn't mean it. “I need more water. One more, okay?”

He started over to the sink, but before he got there, two people arrived with armloads of fresh linens and began to make Katie's bed. Silently, he watched. After they left, Gretchen pulled back the curtain and watched him pour her water, then wash his hands.

“What a sordid little life. I guess those people were her parents. What losers,” he said, handing her the glass.

“How do you mean?”

“Smoked since she was ten. Where were they?” he asked. “Lots of teen piercings. Nipple rings.”

“She's an adult. She's twenty-one.”

“And free to act like any old adult fathead, apparently. They popped her out and gave up. Let her roll in the slop on the floor.”

“You don't know what they've been through with her. Maybe this is the best way. Maybe being forgiving, unconditional… people can do that, love unconditionally.”

“To hell with her pain. I'd have had her over my knee. I'd be ripping the damned ‘jewelry' out one by one.”

“I got something different,” Gretchen said, reaching into the bag for her clothes. She pulled the hospital gown down onto the floor and threw on a sweater.

“Oh? What did you get? That they're such good people because they let her ruin her life? Come on, you were as staggered as me about what a waste she is. She won't live to be thirty.”

“She seemed very young to me. Immature, and very, very desperate. She was hurting. The dad kept track of everything for her. He ran out to find help. The mother cuddled her because she needed that. They forgave her everything, every dumb thing she did.”

“They're irresponsible idiots. People like that should never be parents, and that girl had no business living, she was so screwed up.”

“How is it you're so responsible? Remind me. I forget.”

“My life is honest, at least. When I knew I had to change things, I told you.”

“You always overrated honesty. What matters isn't what you say, it's what you do. I don't think you're responsible at all. I think you depend on other people too much, and I think your ego gives you the idea you're running your life independently, when you don't. You need me. You always will. You've got to face that before you can understand real love.” Gretchen pulled on her underpants carefully, up and over her injured leg. He came over to help her with her sweatpants.

“No.”

“That looks awkward. Let me help.”

“You'll push too fast and it will hurt. Please don't. Leave it.”

“I'll be careful.”

“No!”

He stared at her.

“I'm too pissed now. I don't want you to touch me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I can see we're going nowhere. It's like you said, this isn't a negotiation, and you're not changing your mind without leaving here tonight. You won't let go of her and come back to me yet, which is what you should do. So do something else for me.”

“What?”

“Go, Craig.”

“I'll take you home. I said I would.”

“I don't want you here right now. You need to grow up. See what's in front of your face. That she's not real. I am real, and I am here for you when you figure that out.”

He loved the idea; she saw it in his eyes, but the well-trained gentleman in him rose to the occasion, offering up token arguments which she easily dismissed.

“How will you get home?” he said, finally giving in.

“Don't worry. I can take care of it.”

“It's very… generous of you, Gretchen.”

“No, it isn't. It's pure selfishness.” She was adamant, and he was eager to get back to his new lover. He left, cell phone open, finger punching away.

Katie's mother came back into the room looking vaguely around. “Forgot her apple juice,” she said, checking under the sheets. She finally found what she was looking for on the counter beside the sink. “She loves apple juice.”

Well, Mom did seem a little on the dim side, Gretchen decided. Nobody left apple juice in bed.

But she sure loved her wayward, screwed-up daughter.

Gretchen swung her leg over the side of the bed and pressed the red button to summon a nurse. Somebody needed to get her a wheelchair, to push her out to the curb. By the time she got home tonight, Craig would have gone to Julie's apartment.

What would Craig do when Julie didn't answer her door? Probably the same thing he had done all evening with the cell phone. He would try and try again. At some point, maybe days down the line, he would get it through his thick skull that Julie was gone.

She hadn't been hard to take care of. Soft, not a suitable match for Craig, Julie wasn't someone with the strength to prop him up. She was certainly no match for Gretchen.

Gretchen had followed her and Craig on Friday night. They went to a restaurant, the restaurant where Gretchen and Craig always used to eat together. Now Gretchen couldn't go there anymore. She would be too embarrassed for their waiter, Harold, to witness her humiliation.

To Gretchen's surprise, Craig hadn't gone home with Julie. At least he had told the truth about that. He left her at the doorway to her building. They kissed while Gretchen watched. Then she followed his new woman all the way back into the dinky, dark apartment house. Gretchen knocked on the door and Julie answered.

Flimsy, insubstantial person. Gretchen would have known better. She had all night to finish, because she and Craig had fought earlier about her drinking. She had stomped off to stay at her mother's, supposedly. Julie's kitchen was full of things Gretchen knew how to use, even if she didn't usually use them.

That Saturday night dancing with Craig, she had seen the specter of Julie coming toward her in his eyes even though she knew it was impossible, that Julie was gone, but with that traveling car wreck of a thought, she had fallen. In that moment, she had succumbed to fear and weakness, and this was her punishment. She accepted it. She took responsibility. She didn't have to like it: visible injury. Weeks of disability. So she learned her lesson. You take control; you accept consequences.

Would he come back begging? Or would he waste a lot of time searching for Julie first?

Maybe he would call the police.

But they would never find her. No one would ever find her. Julie, as it turned out, was a clean freak. She had more bleach stowed below her kitchen sink than a hospital. And Gretchen, messy in her own life, knew how to clean, she just didn't like it much.