I did not answer the posts, because they were not addressed to me in any way I was obliged to acknowledge.

I did not send the conciliatory text.

I did not offer the make-up lunch.

When Derek asked, uneasily, whether I was going to respond to his sister’s messages, I told him that if she wanted to discuss restaurant etiquette she was welcome to do it over a bill she had paid herself, and I went back to my book.

The doing-nothing was the hardest thing I did in the whole affair, harder than walking out of the restaurant, because walking out had the momentum of a decision behind it and the doing-nothing had to be chosen again every single day, every time the phone lit up, every time the guilt tried to rise.

I chose it every day.