The fourth cocktail had seemed like a

good idea. So did the bangs, come to

think of it. But now that I’m struggling
to unlock my apartment door, I’m
guessing I might regret that last spritz
in the morning. Maybe the bangs, too.
June told me breakup bangs were
almost always a very bad choice when I
sat in her chair for a cut today. But
June wasn’t going to her friend’s
engagement celebration, newly single,
that night. Bangs were in order.

It’s not that I’m still in love with my ex;

I’m not. I never was. Sebastian is kind
of a snob. An up-and-coming corporate
lawyer, he wouldn’t have lasted one
hour at Chantal’s party without
scoffing at her choice of signature
drink and referencing some
pretentious article he read in the New
York Times that declared Aperol
spritzes “over.” Instead, he would
pretend to study the wine list, ask the
bartender annoying questions
about terroir and acidity and,
regardless of the answers, go with a
glass of the most expensive red. It’s
not that he has exceptional taste or
knows a lot about wine; he doesn’t. He
just buys expensive stuff to give the
impression of being discerning.

Sebastian and I were together for

seven months, giving our relationship
the distinction of being my longest-
lasting one yet. In the end, he said he
didn’t really know who I was. And he
had a point.

Before Sebastian, the guys I picked

were up for a good time and didn’t
seem to mind keeping things casual.
By the time I met him, I figured being a
serious adult meant I should find
someone to get serious about.
Sebastian fit the bill. He was attractive,
well read, and successful, and despite
being a bit pompous, he could talk to
anyone about almost anything. But I
still found it hard to share too many
pieces of myself. I’d long ago learned
to tamp down my tendency to let
random thoughts spew unfiltered from
my mouth. I thought I was doing a
good job of giving the relationship a
real chance, but in the end Sebastian
recognized my indifference, and he was
right. I didn’t care about him. I didn’t
care about any of them.

There was only the one.

And that one is long gone.

So I enjoy spending time with men,

and I appreciate how sex gives me an
escape ladder out of my mind. I like
making men laugh, I like having
company, I like taking a break from my
vibrator once in a while, but I don’t get
attached, and I don’t go deep.

I’m still fumbling with my key—

seriously, is something wrong with the
lock?—when my phone buzzes in my
purse. Which is weird. No one calls me
this late. Actually, no one ever calls
me, except for Chantal and my parents.
But Chantal is still at her party and my
parents are touring Prague and won’t
be awake yet. The buzzing stops just as
I get the door open and stumble into
my small one-bedroom apartment. I
check the mirror by the entrance to
find my lipstick mostly smudged off
but my bangs looking pretty
phenomenal. Suck it, June.

I begin to unfasten the strappy gold

sandals I’m wearing, a dark sheet of
hair falling over my face, when my
phone starts up again. I dig it out of
my purse and, one shoe off, make my
way toward the couch, frowning at the
“unknown name” message on the
screen. Probably a wrong number.

“Hello?” I ask, bending to take off the

second sandal.

“Is this Percy?”

I stand upright so fast I have to hold

on to the arm of the couch to steady
myself. Percy. It’s a name nobody calls
me anymore. These days I’m
Persephone to almost everyone.
Sometimes I’m P. But I’m never Percy. I
haven’t been Percy for years.

“Hello . . . Percy?” The voice is deep

and soft. It’s one I haven’t heard in
more than a decade, but so familiar
I’m suddenly thirteen years old and
slathered in SPF 45, reading
paperbacks on the dock. I’m sixteen
and peeling off my clothes to jump
into the lake, naked and sticky after a
shift at the Tavern. I’m seventeen and
lying on Sam’s bed in a damp bathing
suit, watching his long fingers move
across the anatomy textbook he’s
studying by my feet. Blood rushes hot
to my face with a whoosh, and the
steady, thick pumping of my heart
invades my eardrums. I take a shaky
breath and sit, stomach muscles
seizing.

“Yes,” I manage, and he lets out a long,

relieved-sounding breath.

“It’s Charlie.”

Charlie.

Not Sam.

Charlie. The wrong brother.

“Charles Florek,” Charlie clarifies, and

begins explaining how he tracked
down my number—something about a
friend of a friend and a connection at
the magazine where I work—but I’m
barely listening.

“Charlie?” I interrupt. My voice is high-

pitched and tight, one part spritz and
two parts shock. Or maybe all parts
total disappointment.
Because this voice does not belong to
Sam.

But of course it doesn’t.

“I know, I know. It’s been a long time.

God, I don’t even know how long,” he
says, and it sounds like an apology.

But I do. I know exactly how long. I

keep count.

It’s been twelve years since I’ve seen

Charlie. Twelve years since that
catastrophic Thanksgiving weekend
when everything between Sam and me
fell apart. When I tore everything
apart.

I used to count the number of days

until my family would head up to the
cottage so I could see Sam again. Now
he’s a painful memory I keep hidden
deep beneath my ribs.

I also know I’ve gone more years

without Sam than I spent with him. The
Thanksgiving that marked seven years
since I’d spoken to him, I had a panic
attack, my first in ages, then drank my
way through a bottle and a half of rosé.
It felt monumental: I’d officially been
without him for more years than we’d
had together at the lake. I’d cried in
ugly, heaving sobs on the bathroom
tiles until I passed out. Chantal came
over the next day with greasy takeout
and held my hair back as I puked, tears
streaming down my face, and I told her
everything.

“It’s been forever,” I tell Charlie.

“I know. And I’m sorry to call you so

late,” he says. He sounds so much like
Sam it hurts, as if there’s a lump of
dough lodged in my throat. I remember
when we were fourteen and it was
almost impossible to tell him apart
from Charlie on the phone. I remember
noticing other things about Sam that
summer, too.

“Listen, Pers. I’m calling with some

news,” he says, using the name he used
to call me but sounding much more
serious than the Charlie I once knew. I
hear him breathe in through his nose.
“Mom passed away a few days ago, and
I . . . well, I thought you’d want to
know.”

His words slam into me like a tsunami,

and I struggle to fully understand
them. Sue’s dead? Sue was young.

All I can get out is a ragged-sounding

“What?”

Charlie sounds exhausted when he

replies. “Cancer. She’d been fighting it
for a couple of years. We’re devastated,
of course, but she was sick of being
sick, you know?”

And not for the first time, it feels like

someone stole the script to my life
story and wrote it all wrong. It seems
impossible that Sue was sick. Sue, with
her big smile and her denim cutoffs
and her white-blond ponytail. Sue,
who made the best pierogies in the
universe. Sue, who treated me like a
daughter. Sue, who I dreamed one day
might be a mother-in-law to me. Sue,
who was sick for years without me
knowing. I should have known. I should
have been there.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I begin. “I . . . I don’t

know what to say. Your mom was . . .
she was . . .” I sound panicked, I can
hear it.

Hold it together, I tell myself. You lost

rights to Sue a long time ago. You are
not allowed to fall apart right now.

I think about how Sue raised two boys

on her own while running the Tavern,
and about the first time I met her,
when she came over to the cottage to
assure my much older parents that
Sam was a good kid and that she
would keep an eye on us. I remember
when she taught me how to hold three
plates at once and the time she told
me not to take crap from any boy,
including her own two sons.

“She was . . . everything,” I say. “She

was such a good mom.”

“She was. And I know she meant a lot

to you when we were kids. That’s sort
of why I’m calling,” says Charlie,
tentative. “Her funeral is on Sunday. I
know it’s been a long time, but I think
you should be there. Will you come?”

A long time? It’s been twelve years.

Twelve years since I’ve made the drive
north to the place that was more like
home to me than anywhere else has
been. Twelve years since I dove,
headfirst, into the lake. Twelve years
since my life crashed spectacularly off
course. Twelve years since I’ve seen
Sam.

But there’s only one answer.

“Of course I will.”