She put her face in her hands.
“After the divorce, I moved into that condo downtown. And I just sat there. For months. Thinking about how I’d been the one who got left. The boring one. The one who should have seen it coming.” She lifted her head. “And I decided I was never going to be that person again. I was never going to be the wife who gets left. I was going to be the other one. The one who takes.”
She looked at me.
“And then I moved in here,” she said. “And you came over with a pie. And you helped me unpack my kitchen. And you were so nice.” Her voice broke. “And I hated you for it. Because you were exactly who I used to be. You had a sweet husband and a good life and a nice house, and you brought pies to strangers. And I thought, She doesn’t even know. She doesn’t know how fast it can all go away.“
