An unfamiliar perfume on his coat, floral and young.

A sudden, ardent love for the gym.

Calls that ended the second I walked into a room.

None of it was proof.

Any one of them had an innocent version, and I had supplied the innocent version every time, because the alternative asked more of me than I was ready to give.

What I had lacked, until the flight confirmation, was the one thing I couldn’t explain away.