I was the one who called the high-powered attorney the next morning.

I was the one who walked away first.

And over the following months, my ego had performed a quiet, patient act of forgery on my own memory, revising that night line by line until I fully believed she had abandoned me and I was the wronged party nobly moving on.

The truth was simpler and far more shameful.

I had pushed her away, and then I had rewritten the history so I would not have to feel it.

I walked back into the unit and, without a word, played the voicemail for Rosalie, so she could hear what had actually happened to the messages she had sent into what she thought was my silence.