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“Which mugs do you want?” Sabrina called, taping up the top of a box of pans.
There was no response from the darkened bedroom she and Chloé had once shared.
Sabrina bit back a sigh. She would have to go in there sooner or later, but she couldn’t now. Not yet. Wiping sweat from her brow, she took a seat at the kitchen table and sipped her glass of water. Less than two years ago, she and Chloé had set up this sunny, yellow kitchen together. Now, Sabrina was dismantling it all alone. How had it all gone so wrong?
She was tempted to take all the mugs. That would teach Chloé not to give her the silent treatment. Sabrina pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t do that. Once she had made up her mind to leave, Sabrina had promised herself she wouldn’t be petty about it. With every day that passed, Chloé tested her resolve further.
Half-packed boxes of dishes lined the kitchen floor. Dividing a household in two took time, especially if you had to do it alone. For the millionth time, Sabrina wished she could call Aurore, her best friend, and ask for help. Aurore was the most organized person she knew, and she always made Sabrina feel better.
There was just one problem. Aurore hated Chloé. If she came over, she would take one look at Sabrina’s ex-girlfriend wallowing in her nest of blankets in the pitch black bedroom and playing games on her phone while Sabrina did all the work of deconstructing their life together, and say something so biting and incisive that Sabrina and Chloé’s relationship would never recover. Sabrina couldn’t live with Chloé anymore, and she couldn’t date her. That didn’t mean she wanted to lose the friendship completely.
As if on cue, Sabrina’s phone buzzed with a text from Aurore. Hey. M and I are going out for drinks after she gets off work. Need a break from battling Queen Bitch?
She isn’t a bitch, Sabrina replied automatically. Drinks would be nice, though. It’s been a long day, and I’m still not done with the kitchen.
Cool. I’ll pick you up in three hours.
Sabrina sent a heart emoji back and turned her phone facedown before she could see Aurore’s reply. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to complain about Chloé, or even that Chloé didn’t deserve to be complained about. She did. It was just…
The corners of Sabrina’s eyes stung. She buried her face in her hands, fighting back tears.
She and Chloé had moved in together at the start of university. They’d barely had to talk about it. Moving in together was just what you did when you were in love and planned to be in love forever.
There hadn’t been a plan. Sabrina rubbed her temples. Not for the first time since the day she had realized things with Chloé weren’t going to work out, she felt as if she was falling backward into a deep, dark well with no handholds to grab and no one to pull her to safety. She didn’t know what she was doing, and maybe she never had. She didn’t know what to do, who to be.
Who was Sabrina outside Chloé Bourgeois’s shadow?
Who did she want to be?
Sabrina stuffed her phone into her pocket. “Chloé?” she called, approaching the bedroom door. Someday soon, she would need to go in there and retrieve her clothes. For now, Sabrina was willing to let Chloé’s invisible barrier of darkness and silence stand unchallenged. She stopped just before the doorway.
Chloé was an immobile lump wrapped in blankets. Her face, lit up by the cold, blue light of her phone screen, was red and chapped from crying. Sabrina wondered if she had tissues, then scolded herself for wondering. It didn’t matter. There were tissues in the living room. Chloé was free to come out and get them. A stack of dirty dishes, the remnants of meals Sabrina had prepared and left in the doorway, was balanced precariously on the nightstand.
“Hey,” said Sabrina.
Chloé didn’t look up.
“I’m going out tonight. You’ll… you’ll have to make your own dinner.”
Chloé typed something on her phone. She still wouldn’t look at Sabrina.
Sabrina sighed. “Okay. Text me if there are specific mugs you want to keep.”
She knew the text would never come. If Sabrina had shocked herself by breaking up with Chloé, she had ripped out the foundations of Chloé’s world and left her with nothing but rubble. It wasn’t fair that Chloé had always depended on Sabrina to shoulder the hard things, but it also wasn’t fair that she had to process the breakup completely alone now. Sabrina wasn’t sure if Chloé had any other friends left.
Aurore and Mireille arrived a little early. Sabrina had just finished boxing up the last of her books when they pulled up. There was no time to shower or change out of her sweaty clothes.
Knowing Aurore, she had dragged Mireille out of the office as soon as Sabrina agreed to come along. Sabrina loved Aurore, but she could be very… forceful when it came to getting her away from Chloé.
“You look like a wreck,” said Aurore the moment she saw Sabrina. She looked her up and down over the top of her blue-tinted sunglasses. “Get in. M wants doughnuts.”
Sabrina’s stomach gurgled. “So do I,” she said gratefully, sliding into the backseat.
Aurore tossed her the aux cord. “Tonight, it’s our mission to make you forget all about that bitch,” she declared.
“She’s not a—” Sabrina sighed. “She is a bitch. I know that and you know that. But I still love her. Maybe I always will. Can we—can we make this a Chloé-free night? How are you guys doing?”
Aurore and Mireille exchanged glances. They grinned. “We have this awful new boss,” Aurore began as they sped out of Sabrina’s neighborhood and into a night brimming with possibilities. “She’s making M color code the tax files, darling. Can you imagine?”
Sabrina smiled to herself as the world outside the window flowed past. Her life wasn’t over. Even now, mired in her grief for her lost relationship, she was beginning to see the light ahead.