Kennan spent the next morning crying. He had thrown away the mirror and washed the blood from her forehead, her hands. Kissed her face like his touch could take back the wounds he had inflicted on her. “I loved you,” he kept saying, and Mairi heard the truth of it: I love you, I’m sorry, but I won’t.

He made her pancakes and coffee. It felt like a farewell meal. And indeed, it was: she had woken to half the bed made, his side of the room clear. His drawers were cracked open and empty, and her sweatshirts hung alone, her shoes in disordered pairs in the closet.

“This isn’t my fault, Mairi,” he said, “but it isn’t yours.”

“Is that an apology?” She lowered her fork – not that she had been eating, just dissecting, gulping coffee. The bruise on her head ached. Her head was swimming and bile was rising up, and she was afraid, because she had spent three years loving a boy who was about to walk away.

“No.” Kennan stood up. He put an envelope down at his empty place. A letter; a stack of unpaid bills. Before she had a chance to breathe, indignant, he was coming around to her side of the table. When he kissed her it felt like agony, like everything inside of her was ripping apart at the seams. He took the vapid hope in her mouth and let her soak in his desperation, and he pulled away with bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t want a baby; I wanted you.”

Mairi touched her stomach. Her lips were burning. She wished that he had hit her, instead, because blood was better to face than emotion. “Right now,” she said, “that is a synonymous thing.”