Sadie

I was practicing how to leave you in the mirror over the sink—the one you cracked last winter after I asked who Lena was and you said, “No one,” then turned your back like that ended it. The fracture still runs through my face, a thin line that won’t line up no matter how I stand. “This isn’t working anymore.” Too stiff. I wiped my hands on my jeans, felt the damp seam catch against my fingers. “We’ve been pretending since March.” That stayed. March was the night your phone lit up on the couch while you were in the shower, her name plain, and I sat there long enough for it to go dark again, like I could still decide not to know. “I don’t think we want the same—” “Sadie?” You were in the doorway, boots still on, red clay tapping onto the tile. Your keys were in your hand, the ring pulled tight against your knuckles. You didn’t step in. You didn’t ask. I turned, and everything I’d practiced slipped. I caught on details instead—the hallway light behind you, the damp cuff of your sleeve, the way your grip eased once, then held. My shoulders gave. “I wasn’t ready to do it for real yet.” You stepped closer, just enough to reach the counter, and set your keys down near the sink. “I know,” you said. Then you took your phone out, unlocked it, and set it face up beside the keys. Lena’s name sat there in the glass, doubled faintly in the mirror’s crack, like it had been there longer than either of us said out loud.