There isn’t much else in the room. A bed, a dresser, a side table. I wonder whether Duke took most of the furniture with him. There’s a sadness to this space that I didn’t expect.

It feels like a place that used to be home.

I hope it can be again. Ashleigh deserves that.

I set my stuff down, grab the unopened roll of painter’s tape, and get to work.

It’s therapeutic, painting along the baseboards and ceiling. And the Miles-inspired sad-girl playlist blaring from my phone gives the experience a cathartic edge too.

It takes an hour just to tape everything off. Then I do the first coat of the upper cut-in and step down from the step stool I found in the garage to admire my handiwork before starting the lower cut-in.

I’m nearly finished with the first coat when a throat clears behind me.

I whirl around, brandishing my paintbrush like it’s a sword.

Ashleigh stands with her arms crossed, one jet-black brow sharply raised.

“You’re back,” I say.

“And you’re listening to Adele’s greatest and saddest,” she replies.

I grab my phone from the step stool’s cupholder and hit pause. Onscreen, I see the beginning of a text from Harvey: Sorry, I did my best but . . .

“Is poker night over already?” I ask.

“The randomly scheduled poker night that suddenly had to be this Saturday, because every other night this month was booked, for everyone?” Ashleigh says. “That poker night?”

I grimace.

“I only went to see what the hell was going on,” she says. “Next time you want to keep a secret from me, you should know how terrible Harvey is at lying. And you. You were weird at work.”

She’s right. I should’ve seen this coming.

After a fraught silence, she says, “You look like shit.”

“Thank you?” I say.

She smiles. Pesky hope climbs my rib cage.

“If you hate it,” I say quickly, “I’ll paint it all back. And I don’t have to do it while you’re here, even. Or if you love it, I can finish it while you go watch Real Housewives, or while you’re out or whatever.”

Her razor-edged brow lifts again. “So this is penance.”

“This is me following through on what I said I’d do,” I say. “Late, obviously. And you’re not obligated to forgive me because of it. It’s not a trade. And I know an over-the-top gesture doesn’t make up for being generally shitty. I would love it if you forgave me, but if you don’t feel like you can, for whatever reason, I understand.”

Her tongue runs over her bottom teeth. Slowly, she saunters toward me, her green eyes sharp and lips pursed. She stops right in front of me, arms still crossed.

Then she grabs me. Hugs me. Uncomfortably tight, almost painful, ultimately perfect. “I’m sorry too,” she says.

“For what?!” I cry, alarmed.

“I may have overreacted,” she says. “It’s just, sometimes I feel like the whole last decade was a wash for me, minus Mulder. Like I’m starting over from scratch, and so everything needs to be exactly right as soon as possible to make up for lost time. I just got so excited to have a new, real friendship, and I put too much pressure on it.”

I shake my head. “I hurt you. I did the exact thing we literally bonded over hating. I don’t think you overreacted.”

She draws back. “You did do that, but I could’ve left you a voice mail, or texted you or something, when I realized it was happening. Instead . . .” She sighs. “Instead I waited to, like, bust you.”

Seemingly in a hard right turn, she says: “I told you I’d picked out a marriage counselor for me and Duke? Even though he wouldn’t agree to go to one?”

I nod.

“Well, by the time our first appointment rolled around, we’d split, but it was too late to cancel without paying a fee. So I went. And I thought I was showing up to, like, complain about him. Which I definitely did.”

“Of course,” I say.

“But I kept going. And I realized I had this tendency. To set up tests. Like, How long can I be in the room before he looks up from his phone? Or, If I don’t say anything, will he ever do the laundry? Or, If I never suggest we get together with friends or do anything fun, will he be the one to make plans, or does it all fall on me?

“Which made sense. I was tired of having the same conversations over and over again and never getting different results. So, yes, you went into the love-bubble slow-fade with Miles, but let he among us who’s never done that throw the first stone, or whatever. My point is, you’re not my ex-husband, and this wasn’t your four-hundred-and-twentieth strike. You blew me off. Big deal. It happens.”

“What happened to When people tell you who they are, believe them?” I say, still waiting for a trapdoor to open in the floor.

“All your actions told me,” she says, “is that you’re human. Which is good, because I don’t think I have it in me to be friends with someone who’s perfect. No more than I have it in me to be friends with someone who says one thing and does another ten times a month. I’m going to hurt you at some point too. I don’t want to, but it’ll happen. I have a kid! I have a whole life! Just like you.

“But I don’t want to lose this friendship over one fight, just because I’m scared it could happen again. You’re becoming kind of important to me, Daphne.”

“Kind of?” I squeak out.

“Kind of really important,” she amends.

I only realize I’m crying when I see the alarm splash across Ashleigh’s face. “Hey!” She grabs my arms, nails sinking into my biceps. “It’s okay! Really!”

“I don’t want to be a person who does that to people,” I say. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong. Maybe that’s why I can’t . . . I can’t—”

“Daphne. Chill for a second,” she says, somehow stern without being unkind. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I shake my head. “We’re talking about us. I can deal with the other stuff later.”

“Honey!” She tugs me over to sit at the foot of her velvet-upholstered bed. “Friends talk about the other stuff.”

When I meet her gaze, her brow is grooved with concern. I feel an intense crush of love for her then, and fresh shame that I could ever forget this person’s birthday, regret that I missed out on what, honestly, would’ve been an amazing Saturday night. After everything with Dad, I’d wanted so badly to escape myself, my life, that I forgot about all the beautiful little pieces of it I’ve been acquiring like sea glass these last few months. Things that no one can take from me.

I sniff. “It’s really okay. I feel better just having everything out in the open between us.”

“Hey,” she says. “Remember me? Ashleigh? I always want to talk about it. So back up. Is this or is it not about you shitting where you eat, with regard to Miles?”

“There was no shitting involved,” I say. “I’m not that adventurous.”

“Holy shit!” she cries, at the nonverbal confirmation. She scoots forward, dropping her voice. “It happened! How was it? Did he just stare lovingly into your eyes the whole time? He seems like a loving-starer.”

My cheeks heat. “No, we didn’t make unblinking eye contact for forty minutes straight.”

“Forty minutes?” she shrieks.

“Not all at once!” I hurry to add. “It was more like a very intense fifteen minutes, a cooldown period, and then a more well-paced thirty later.”

“Okay, now this surprises me,” she says.

“Trust me,” I say. “I’m well aware of how little sense he and I make.”

She scoffs. “No, you two make perfect sense. I just would’ve imagined Miles would be so overeager that he’d sail straight through to the finish line, with no decorum.”

“There was decorum,” I say.

“Hot, charming guys never learn how to work for it,” she muses.

“He worked for it.” Immediately I want to take it back.