I didn’t cry.

It wasn’t that the betrayal didn’t hurt — it felt like a fault line had cracked open through my chest — but under the streetlamps I understood that pain is not a reason to turn back into a burning building.

Pain is only the alarm telling you to get out.

I didn’t drive to the house we shared.

I drove downtown to a hotel suite I’d booked three days before.

Out of the shower, I found my phone a waterfall of notifications: twenty-seven calls from Warner, fourteen voicemails from Adelina, a frantic text from Dinah — my brother is a monster, but please pick up, Mom is hyperventilating and we don’t know what to do — and even one from Aunt Gail: You showed real spine tonight.