Reuben was a man of principles.

He liked plans. He liked order. He liked everything to follow the proper sequence.

He was never late for a date. If we said seven o'clock and he arrived at one minute past, he apologized.

Every anniversary, he worked late, because the project deadline couldn't be moved.

The hospital where I worked was close to him. I asked if he could drop me off on his way.

He said he didn't want to take the detour.

So I caught the subway and switched to a bus every day, until my heels blistered, scabbed, and blistered again.

Then one day the rain came down hard, and I stood soaked through under the bus shelter.

Reuben's car drove past and sprayed water all over me.

Bonnie was in the passenger seat.

That was how I learned that every day he drove halfway across the city to take her to work and home again.

He was always like that.

Bonnie was the one exception in all his principles.

"Reuben…"

Bonnie's voice carried over.

He glanced back toward the office, and his tone went hurried.

"I have to get to it. We'll talk at home if there's something."

I looked at him, and for the first time I saw how ridiculous I'd been.

Forget it.

"Come home early tonight. There's something I need to talk to you about."

I turned and walked away.

Reuben froze, took two instinctive steps after me, then turned back at the sound of Bonnie calling his name.

Downstairs, I dropped the coffee into the trash.

Coffee I was allergic to, a man past his expiration date. I didn't want either of them anymore.

I walked all day with nowhere to go.

By the time I got home, it was dark.

I'd just stepped out of my shoes when a pair of hands gently caught me from behind and guided me to the couch.

Reuben knelt in front of me and bent his head over my ankle.

"Why are you bleeding?"

I followed his gaze and only then saw the raw patch on my heel, the faint stain of blood seeping through my sock.

He dug the little first-aid kit out from under the coffee table and started dabbing at it with an iodine swab.

"Does it hurt?"

He blew on it softly, every motion careful.

Something in my chest went soft for a moment.

I nodded and looked down, meaning to say something.

My eyes landed on my ankle.

On the bandage was a little deer.

The same little deer shape as the latte art on the coffee that morning.

My fingers curled in.

The warmth that had just started to rise felt like someone had poured a glass of ice water over it.

"Reuben, let's get a divorce."

The hand holding the tweezers went still.

"Over the Iceland trip?"

He frowned, his tone disbelieving, as if the idea were absurd.

I met his eyes and nodded.

"Yes."

He raised a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, like his patience had run out.

"Marie, something this small, how long are you going to keep making a scene over it?"

Small. My things were always small.

Only Bonnie's things were ever big.

Reuben took a deep breath, set the tweezers back on the coffee table, stood up, and stepped back.

"Marie, you're not stable right now. I'm not going to argue with you."

His voice was pressed flat and even, the way you'd soothe a child throwing a tantrum.

"This divorce thing, I'll pretend I didn't hear it. Don't bring it up again."

Then he turned for the entryway and bent to change his shoes.

"I'll stay somewhere else tonight. We'll talk when you've calmed down."

The door slammed shut.

The apartment went terrifyingly quiet.

I slumped there in the dark, and the familiar suffocation rushed over me.

It wasn't the first time.

Reuben and I had fought over Bonnie more times than I could count.

Every time ended the same way.

He slammed the door and left me alone in the empty apartment.

No clearing it up, no explanation, no talking. Just gone, like he'd vanished off the face of the earth.

He'd come back in a few days as if nothing had happened, asking whether I'd calmed down yet.

Every problem between us, he traced back to my moods.

It never once occurred to him that he might be the one at fault.

Bonnie was always innocent.

The only one being difficult was me.

I curled up on the floor, buried my face against my knees, and swallowed down the burning in my throat again and again.

I didn't sleep all night, and by morning I was running a fever.

When I woke, I'd already been carried to the bed.

Reuben stood in front of me, breakfast set out on the nightstand.

Seeing my eyes open, he reached out and felt my forehead.

"Still feeling bad?"

I shook my head. I wanted to tell him to get out.

But my throat hurt too much to speak.

He picked up the bowl of porridge, stirred it, blew on a spoonful, and held it out to me.

I turned my head away and refused to open my mouth.

Reuben sighed and set the spoon back in the bowl.

"Marie, can't you act like an adult and stop making trouble for me?"

Trouble.

Anything to do with me was trouble.

My throat was tight and burning. I didn't want to say anything at all.

Reuben stood there a moment, then set a small box down in front of me.

"I did go back on my word about Iceland. This is for you. Stop making a scene."

Then he turned to get his coat.

"I'm heading to the school. Bonnie has a paper due today, I need to go help her with it."

At the door, he paused.

"Get some rest. Don't dwell on things that aren't real. Once your fever breaks and you're feeling stable again, we'll talk about Iceland."

The door closed.

His quick footsteps faded down the end of the hall.

I opened the box. No surprise. A silver four-leaf-clover necklace.

The exact same necklace. He'd given me seven of them.

The first time, I was so happy I couldn't bear to take it off, even to sleep.

Later I saw the same one on a coworker's desk. She said it was a gift from some restaurant.

That same day, a post showed up on Bonnie's feed: her and Reuben eating at that very restaurant.

Reuben explained that a thesis from a student they co-advised had won an award, and they'd gone to celebrate.

I pushed down that vague ache I couldn't name and told myself that at least he'd thought of me.

Then came the second, the third, the fourth.

Counting today's, that made eight.

Yesterday, after Reuben slammed the door and left, Bonnie posted to her feed.

And Reuben was in every post.

I lay curled in the empty house, crying until my whole body shook.

The two of them, singing, shopping, enjoying every minute of it.

I swiped through them one by one and stopped on the candlelit dinner.

Candlelight on Reuben's profile, a different man entirely from the one who'd slammed the door.

After I'd asked for a divorce, after the screaming fight.

He acted as if none of it had happened.

Cutting Bonnie's steak as if nothing was wrong, holding up his phone to take her picture.

Smiling in every shot. Nothing like the man at home.

Talking about Neruda's poems with her in the bookstore on the second floor.

Picking out lipstick shades for her on the third.

Belting out songs together in the karaoke room on the fourth.

Worn out from it all, a candlelit dinner on the fifth.

And on the way home, grabbing a freebie for me.

It was absurd.

For the first time, I felt cheap.

I threw off the blanket, ran barefoot to the drawer, and yanked it open.

I dumped all eight necklaces into the trash.

In the bottom drawer of the nightstand lay a set of divorce papers.

For years I'd picked them up and set them down again and again.

This time I turned without hesitation to the last page and signed my name.

After that, I started packing.

It was already night by the time Reuben got home.

He walked in and dropped onto the couch without so much as glancing back at me.

Not until I rolled my suitcase past him.

Only then did he frown and ask, irritated,

"It's this late. Where do you think you're going?"

I slapped the divorce papers down on the table and told him to sign.

He flipped through a few pages without much interest, then looked up.

"Could you at least make it more convincing? If you really wanted a divorce, would you ever give up this place?"

I froze.

I had poured so much of myself into this home.

The location, the floor, all of it chosen with care.

When we renovated, I went to every building-supply store in the city.

The color of the couch, the style of the curtains, I compared more than thirty places before deciding.

Even the spice rack in the kitchen, I picked each one out by hand, dragging Reuben along.

The day we moved in, we lay in bed and neither of us could sleep.

I held him from behind, my voice catching, and said,

"We have a home now."

But then Bonnie came by once, and a few throw pillows she liked appeared on the couch.

Then the curtains were swapped for that off-white lace cutout I never liked.

On the bathroom counter, her skincare slowly outnumbered mine.

Now even the slippers had little antlers on them.

I don't know when it happened, but this home was full of her everywhere I looked.

I looked for a long moment, then said quietly,

"It's tainted. I don't want it. Keep it, you and Bonnie."

The second I said Bonnie's name.

His face darkened, and his voice went cold.

"Marie, there's a limit to how much trouble you get to make."

"I've told you a thousand times. Bonnie and I are just friends. There is nothing between us, nothing at all."

"Keep your ugly little theories to yourself. She's done nothing wrong."

The same words, said a thousand times.

He was innocent.

Bonnie was innocent.

The only filthy mind here was mine.

I had no patience left for any of it.

"Sign."

We stood there facing each other for a long time.

He signed with a cold face, threw the pen down on the table, and looked up at me.

"Fine. It's signed."

"Let's see how long you last. Don't come crawling back to me."

My answer was the door slamming hard behind me.

Once I was out of the complex, I flagged down a car and gave the name of a hotel.

On my phone, I started looking into tour groups to Iceland.

I had waited seven years for Reuben. That was enough.

Some roads you have to walk on your own.

That night, I slept more soundly than I had in a long time.

The next morning, I went down for breakfast.

I'd just picked up a plate when someone behind me called out,

"Marie?"

It was Bonnie.

My stomach dropped, and sure enough, when I turned, Reuben was standing in the doorway.

Bonnie glanced at me and said to him,

"Reuben, you brought your wife along to a work conference? No wonder you were murmuring sweet nothings in your sleep last night."

Reuben's expression turned awkward.

"She came on her own."

Bonnie smiled at me, sweet as anything.

"So Marie came to keep tabs on you?"

She didn't wait for me to answer. She turned back to him.

"Then again, can't blame her. A man built like you… honestly, what woman could ever relax?"

She made it sound offhand, but every word was meant to remind me.

That she and Reuben shared an ease, a private joke, that I would never be part of.

I stood there and said nothing.

Reuben swept his eyes over me, a cold smile curling at his mouth.

"Marie, couldn't even hold out a single day before running here to beg? Hm?"

He thought I'd been following him.

I gave a small smile.