She didn’t want to keep anything of his—not a mug, not a belt, not a book.

The kitchen was the hardest part. There was the wooden table where they’d eaten breakfast for six years, the faint stain on the wall from the coffee splash, the exact spot where she’d felt so small.

Megan suggested throwing the table away.

“You don’t have to stay strong in front of the old furniture, Skylar,” Megan told her gently.

Skylar laughed for the first time in many days, though her cheek stung when she did. The two of them, with help from the building’s janitor, hauled the table down to the street and left it for the garbage truck.

Then Skylar opened every window in the apartment. The fresh air off the street carried the scent of rain, of ocean breeze, of sweet pastries from the corner bakery, of a whole living city.