After my shift, I stopped and did the second round of labs Zander had ordered. Then I called in the cupcakes Briana told me to get for the nurses so they’d be ready in three days when I went back to work.

I didn’t know why she was helping me. It clearly pained her to do it. Did Gibson say something to her? I hoped not. I didn’t need some intervention from the boss on my behalf, some forced Play Nice.

I walked Lieutenant Dan and got something on Grubhub. I had dinner, took a shower, and had just sat down to journal in my plant room when my phone rang.

Mom.

I didn’t answer it. I’d been ignoring everyone’s calls and texts since the phone call last week. I knew what they wanted—to know about my girlfriend. I had no idea what to do about it.

I contemplated dragging it on. Making excuses for why she could never make it to anything and then eventually saying we broke up. Maybe I could suspend their disbelief right up until the wedding—which I would then show up to alone, for everyone to look at with pity as the newly single again, twice-jilted, brokenhearted ex of the bride.

Maybe I should just come clean. Or at the very least end the charade and “break up” with her now.

It was one thing to keep it vague. Say I’m seeing someone and leave it at that. But the details bothered me. I didn’t like looking my family in the eye

and giving them some made-up name and made-up background for a made- up woman who didn’t exist. It felt wrong, even if my intentions were good. And I just didn’t know how to get around this. Frankly, I was surprised nobody pressed me harder for her name when I’d told them the news. At the time, I think they’d been too shocked to dig for more info—but they were definitely ready to dig now. Even Walter had called me.

Mom’s call ended. Then a text pinged through.

Mom: Jacob, will you be having a plus-one on the nineteenth? I have to know how many cutlets to make.

And then a moment later:

Ping.

Mom: Never mind, I’ll just make my pesto pasta. There’ll be plenty. Unless she’s allergic to nuts? Is she allergic to nuts?

I pinched the bridge of my nose. I don’t know, Jacob. Is your imaginary girlfriend allergic to nuts?

God.

How was I going to do this when I had all of them pecking at me in person?

Then I remembered that even the most unrelenting interrogation would be better than the alternative—everyone watching to see if I was unraveling, everyone blaming Jeremiah and Amy. I could feel the tension of that inevitable situation bearing down on me like radiant heat.

I just wanted to be invisible. I wished I could wipe everyone’s brains and have them forget that Amy and I had ever been a thing.

Hell, I wished I could forget Amy and I had ever been a thing.

Lieutenant Dan got up from his spot by my feet and put his big head in my lap. He always knew when my anxiety was high.

Lieutenant Dan was a three-legged two-year-old Bernese mountain dog. He was also one of the many reasons why I wasn’t interested in a chief position at Royaume Northwestern. When Amy and I shared him, he was never home alone for more than a few hours, even if I was working my eighty-hour week. But now he just had me. I wasn’t interested in never being home anymore. I liked being home. These days, home was the only place I felt true peace.

Especially now that everyone at work hated me.

I sat back in my chair in my plant room and stared wearily into the succulents. I hoped the cupcakes helped. I didn’t see how they could. The situation felt well beyond baked goods to me.

I looked back down at my journal. Journaling centered me, made me feel calmer. It was one of the skills I’d learned in therapy, and it helped me work through the events of the day and subsequent emotions when I transferred them onto paper. But in the end I didn’t journal.

I wrote a letter to Briana Ortiz.