I had spent three years believing I loved that man.

Watching him grieve me on camera, an hour after smiling at my car as it sank, was its own particular sickness, and I felt it move through me and settle into something harder.

I did not cry.

I had, I discovered, cried the last of it under the pier.

What was left was cold and level and very awake.

“Play whatever else you have,” I said.

“All of it.