Yeah, she knew. She didn’t doubt his love for her, that wasn’t what this was all about—hadn’t he listened at all to what she’d said? She shut the box and took her coffee back to bed.

Three more cakes arrived over the next two days. She stacked them all on her kitchen counter, untouched. She should drop them off at the food pantry, but that would mean she’d have to answer some difficult questions from Jamila, and she’d spent all weekend ignoring her texts. Instead she’d watched marathons of the Real Housewives of New York City, Atlanta, and Orange County. Strangely, these women and their awful relationships all made her feel better about her own choices. That was, until she was in bed in the middle of the night, without Max next to her, without his love and affection and desire for her. He’d loved her, wholly, completely, in a way no one had ever loved her before. And never would again, she was sure of that. How could she have let that go?

She probably should have told him long ago how hard all this was on her. But for so many years, she’d learned how to suck it up, pretend to the world everything was fine, even when she was miserable inside. A lot of times, she even pretended that to herself. She didn’t blame Max for not knowing what a hard time she’d had with everything. But she knew she couldn’t go back to the way it had been.

Sunday night she couldn’t sleep. None of her regular tricks—hot bath, soothing book, warm boozy drink—worked. Finally, she turned on a documentary, and the soothing voices talking about an old sports scandal lulled her to sleep, at least for a few hours. But she woke up at four with that look on Max’s face in her head, and she knew she’d never get back to sleep.

At five a.m. Monday, she went to the gym for a spin class. She thought it would make her feel better, but instead she cried the entire time. Thank God she also sweat so much no one had seemed to notice.

She showered at the gym and threw her work clothes on there. At least she didn’t have any meetings that day and could hunker down in the office and get work done and not talk to a soul.

She shut off her feelings and worked steadily for almost two hours—she finished a brief, she replied to dozens of emails, she went through a pile of documents for discovery prep, and was deep into the PowerPoint for their next pitch when Ellie knocked on her door.

“I was wondering why the light was on in your office. What in the Lord’s name are you doing here?” Ellie asked. “It’s barely eight a.m. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen you at this hour in my life.”

Olivia shrugged. She really wasn’t in the mood to get into everything with Ellie right now. Hopefully, she could play this all off—the makeup she’d thrown on when she got to the office after the gym should mask any of the lingering signs of her tears, and she’d learned from her many years working for terrible bosses how to pretend she was okay at work.

“I couldn’t sleep. I was worrying about all of this stuff, so I decided to just come in and dive into it.” She made herself laugh. “It’s made me realize you’ve been right all of these years about getting into the office early—it’s great to be able to dive into work without any of the distractions that are there in the late afternoon, operating on adrenaline and a huge cup of coffee instead of a sugar high and then low from my three p.m. snack.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes and came farther into her office.

“This feels like one of those things where in six months I’ll look back on it and say, ‘I should have known my best friend had been kidnapped and a robot had replaced her that time she showed up at the office before eight a.m. and told me how great it was to get up early.’ ” She came around the desk and touched Olivia’s forehead. “You seem like a real person, but I’m not convinced. What was the name of that shot that made you so sick that one night in law school? And don’t ask me which night!”

Olivia forced herself to grin. She would joke around with Ellie about this, and Ellie would go back to her office, and she wouldn’t have to talk about anything hard.

“The Three Wise Men: Jack, Jim, and Jose. The most disgusting thing I’ve ever put in my body; my body clearly agreed, because it revolted against it very quickly afterward. That was the fault of our damn friends, but I mostly blame Nathan. Satisfied that I’m who I say I am?”

Ellie pursed her lips.

“I’m still not convinced. A robot could probably come up with that one; that’s probably the shot that’s made a lot of people that sick.” She looked around the room, and her eye landed on Olivia’s gym bag in the corner.

Oh shit. It was all over now.

“Olivia. What’s that?”

No, no, she wasn’t going to concede defeat just yet.

“Just my gym bag. I went to the gym this morning but I didn’t want to put my makeup on in the crowded mirror there, so I waited until I got here. Though, the lighting situation in the bathroom here leaves a lot to be— ”

Ellie closed the door. Then she sat down in the chair across from Olivia.

“Okay. Spill it. What did he do?”

Olivia looked in her eyes for a few seconds, and it all fell apart.

“He didn’t . . . he did something, but it wasn’t . . . but it made me realize we . . .” She swallowed. “I broke up with him. Friday night. I’m a wreck, El.”

It felt real, to say it out loud to Ellie. She hadn’t wanted it to feel real.