It has been fourteen months since the morning Kat came to my kitchen. I have not spoken to her. I have not seen her. Derek moved out six weeks after her letter — Hannah told me. They are separated. I do not know if they will divorce. I have, on three separate occasions, had the fleeting thought that I should call Kat, because she is in the middle of something hard, and because fifteen years is fifteen years, and because the habit of reaching for her when she is in pain is the last thing in me that has not died. I have not made the call. I am thirty-seven years old. I live in the house Owen and I used to share. I have a dog

now. I have a therapist I see on Tuesdays. I have three new friendships with women in their thirties who I have been deliberately, slowly investing in, the way you invest in things that take time. I am not the same person I was before Kat walked past my sleeping body in Asheville. I am quieter. I am more careful. I am also, in ways I am still figuring out, stronger. So tell me honestly — was the slow disappearance cruel, or was it the only way a fifteen-year friendship like ours was ever going to end?

* Story inspired by real-life situations. Names and details have been changed for privacy.