I did not pick up. I never picked up. She came to my house the following Saturday. I watched her through the peephole for almost a minute, knocking and calling my name, and I did not open the door. She sent me a seven-paragraph email the next morning. She said she was devastated. She said she had held up her end — she had apologized, she had offered everything,

she had cried to me — and she could not understand why I was "punishing her forever." She said the phrase "punishing her forever" four times in the email. She said we had been best friends for fifteen years and that I was throwing it away over "one mistake." She said Owen had moved on. She said Derek knew everything now and was trying to forgive her, and that if her marriage could survive this, surely our friendship could. She asked me — begged me — to get coffee with her. I finally replied. My reply was seventeen words long. It said: "Kat. You asked me to get over it. I did. I got over you. Please stop emailing me."