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“You call each other friends, but I’m starting to question that…”

“Best friends. The kind who can shit-talk each other without consequence. I always win the shit-talking competitions, for the record. Now, tell me what you want on your pizza, all right?”

She was a professional, keeping everything close to her chest, keeping her expression closed off, but just for a flash I saw the defenses go down—no doubt they’d already taken a hell of a beating today—and I caught a glimpse of an ocean of relief there in her eyes, just a second before she pulled it back together. “What do you have?”

“Pineapple.”

She laughed. “If you’re trying to start something, I’m not a picky eater. I love pineapple on pizza.”

I stepped inside with her, gesturing her towards the back door. “Then you’re going to be well taken care of here. C’mon. Let’s get you a proper pizza.”

Chapter 5

Ryan

I’d talked to a lot of people in a lot of bad situations, and one thing that united everyone was trying to find some ways to make sense of it, trying to find order in the chaos.Just the way of life, all part of God’s plan, a cosmic test—everyone had their own way to process it, in anything from earthquakes and wildfires to illness, domestic abuse, government failures, everything in between.

Comparing my situation to all of that felt crass—a ratty-ass man cheating on me and losing his shit on me when I confronted him and telling me I never deserved him anyway, it felt like something from a trashy soap opera at most, not a life-changing crisis. But one thing people always talked about in trying to make sense of it all was this idea that there was always light in the darkness, that there was always some blessing hidden in it all, even if it was a small consolation compared to the loss.

Someone losing their house in a wildfire bonds with the rest of their community in the rebuilding effort. Someone who loses a parent to illness remembers how important family is and renews their connections with their adult children.

Me, I got a damn good pizza. And honestly, between pizza and men, I’d take pizza. I think I was winning out.

Brooklyn’s house was a cute, cozy place—not in the way my aunt would use that to politely call a house small, but in that the cabana style and the wild gardens around the house gave it this feeling like a magical place tucked away from the rest of the world, and as I sat hunched into myself in one corner of the couch watching Brooklyn tend to a couple of small pizzas in a brick oven, I felt a little bit like I’d been whisked away to another world. A world where Shane didn’t exist and where I didn’t have to confront my family over the whole thing.

Damn, but I wished I could cry. I felt it hanging on the edges of my awareness like needing to sneeze but it just wouldn’t come—my body needed to cry, but tears wouldn’t come, and it left me frustrated and unfulfilled as Brooklyn set down a pizza peel in front of me, two perfect pizzas on the table.

“Give them a minute,” she said. “They’ll burn your tongue out of your mouth. Do you want something to drink? I’ve got alcoholic and nonalcoholic options depending on how you’re trying to deal with the situation. Or just water.”

“I don’t drink alcohol when I’m sad. Personal policy.”

“Smart one. Ginger beer?”

I nodded, knowing I should have used my words like a grownup but—but frankly, I didn’t really want to be a grownup right now.

When Brooklyn brought back a couple of mugs with ice-cold drinks, I cupped mine close to my chest with a quietthank you, and she gave me the space to sit there processing for a while, before she leaned forward to pick up the pizza cutter and get started on the pizzas, talking absently as she did.

“So, you’re going to have to let me know how best to host you,” she said lightly. “If you want to talk shit about him, I’ll agree with everything you say. If you want to talk about something different, I’m an expert at filling dead air. And if you want some peace and quiet, I’ll figure out how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Was I supposed to do something different?” I said quietly, not even realizing I’d said it, but she took it gracefully, turning to me in the low glow of the firelight, offering me the pizza slices with a sympathetic smile.

“If you’d done things differently, maybe he wouldn’t have cheated—I can’t say I know the counterfactual—but nothing would have changed who he was at the core. At best, you’d have had a relationship with a restrained cheater.”

“How did I not know earlier?” I shook my head. “He was always off with someone else. For work, of course. Even when we traveled…”

Her nose twitched, a frustrated look almost like a pout passing over her features. Honestly, it was more… cute than I’d expected from her. “What a dick.”

I shrugged. She sighed.

“You didn’t know earlier because you trusted him. Nothing wrong with that. Relationships are built on trust. It’s on him for violating that.”

“It can’t beeverythingon him. You say that about everything.”

She smiled a little, a glint in her eyes. “I can, and I will. He cheated. He’s a dick.”

It shouldn’t have been this satisfying to hear that… I was mature enough to know that conflict was a two-way street and that there was always another side to any given issue. That surrounding yourself with a bunch of people who think the same person is shitty was just self-satisfaction and burying your head in the sand.

Still, felt nice to shit-talk him together with her. Maybe I’d already moved past denial and into anger. That’d be nice for me. Even so, I tried to be better, hugging myself. “He wasn’t satisfied. That’s on me. I never gave him enough attention—I’m not a very affectionate person, I guess—we almost never had sex. I guess it makes sense he’d go get it from someone else. Just… that wasn’t the way to do it.”