“She’s bluffing,” Marianne said in the background of Liam’s voicemail.

“Tell her to come back and stop embarrassing you.”

Faye sat in the passenger seat of her sister’s car, watching rain collect along the windshield.

Her phone rested in her palm, vibrating again and again.

Liam.

Marianne.

Liam again.

She did not answer.

Through the voicemail speaker, she heard Liam moving from room to room inside the apartment.

A closet door opened.

A drawer slammed.

His footsteps quickened.

“Faye, where are you?” he asked.

“Your things are gone.

Your key is here.

What did you do?”

Then came the faint sound of paper unfolding.

Faye pictured him standing at the kitchen counter, still wearing his work clothes, holding the grocery-list page on which she had written her final message.

“You’re right.

You shouldn’t stay with someone when you can’t remember why you chose her.

“Now you and your mom can figure out together why you’re single.”

The voicemail went silent.

Then Liam whispered, “No.”

Not angry.

Not dismissive.

Afraid.

Nora glanced at Faye as the light turned green.

“Are you going to answer?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Nora drove toward her apartment while the phone continued vibrating.

Faye watched the city pass through wet glass and waited for grief to arrive.

Instead, she felt exhausted relief.

For months, she had been carrying a relationship Liam had already set down.

She had paid bills, organized their lives, remembered birthdays, planned dinners and softened every insult his mother delivered.

Liam enjoyed the benefits of her devotion while treating her presence as something guaranteed.

Now the guarantee was gone.

At the apartment, Liam searched every room as though Faye might have hidden herself behind a curtain to prove a point.

Her side of the closet was empty.

The blue mug from the kitchen was missing.

Her books were gone from the shelf.

In the bathroom, only his toothbrush remained in the cup.

Marianne followed him from room to room, growing irritated rather than concerned.

“This is childish,” she said.

“She packed all this in one day just to frighten you.”

Liam opened the cabinet beneath the sink.

Faye’s cleaning supplies were still there, but the small basket containing her hair products had disappeared.

“She took everything.”

“Then let her go,” Marianne replied.

“You said yourself you weren’t sure why you were still together.”

Liam looked at his mother.

He had said it casually the night before, protected by the belief that Faye would argue, cry and eventually forgive him.

Hearing Marianne repeat it inside the hollowed-out apartment made the sentence sound different.

Crueler.

More permanent.

He returned to the kitchen and picked up the note again.

“She didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”

Marianne folded her arms.

“Explain what? That you were honest?”

Liam stared at the ceramic bowl.

Faye’s key lay beside his spare one.

For the first time, he understood the difference between honesty and humiliation.

His phone chimed with an email from the grocery-delivery service.

Faye’s payment method had been removed from the shared account.

A second message showed that the internet autopayment scheduled from her bank had been canceled.

He opened the household spreadsheet she maintained and found a final entry beside every bill she was responsible for.

Paid through move-out date.

Nothing more.

“Mom,” he said slowly, “half