I only knew that I loved a patient man, and that I was the problem, and that both of those things had been decided long before I ever sat down at that table.

The promise lasted exactly until his assistant handed him a positive test that wasn’t mine.

Chapter 3 — Good at Being Alone

He had emptied our joint account before dawn.

I found that out standing at an ATM the next morning, watching the screen tell me, politely, that my request could not be completed.

By then he had already canceled the insurance that paid for the treatments he’d blamed me for needing.