I leaned against the counter.
"But that's what she's doing."
My mother sighed.
"She said Liam has abandoned her."
"I'm not surprised."
"Her friends aren't talking to her."
"Also not my problem."
"Her parents are angry."
I felt a brief pang of sympathy.
Diane and Sarah's father didn't deserve the humiliation.
Still, sympathy wasn't obligation.
"Mom, I need you to understand something."
"I'm listening."
"I'm not angry at you."
"I know."
"But I don't want Sarah reaching me through family."
"Okay."
"Don't give her updates about me."
"I won't."
"Don't tell her whether I'm dating anyone."
My mother paused.
"You are dating someone?"
Despite myself, I smiled.
"That's not the point."
"Oh."
"Mom."
"Sorry."
I laughed quietly.
Then became serious again.
"Please block her number."
"I will."
"Thank you."
My mother's voice softened.
"I'm proud of you."
"For blocking somebody?"
"For not becoming cruel."
I didn't answer.
"You could've made all of this uglier."
"Wouldn't help."
"No."
She paused.
"You sound better."
"I am."
"Good."
That call bothered me for the rest of the day.
Not because I wanted Sarah.
Because she'd entered my mother's life again.
That crossed a boundary.
So I finally blocked every number Sarah had used.
Months earlier, I thought silence meant weakness.
Now I understood silence could be a decision.
Around that time, Emily entered my life.
I met her through my brother.
Emily Parker worked as an architectural designer.
My brother's construction company had collaborated with her firm on a commercial project.
He invited both of us to a small barbecue.
I suspected immediately that he was trying to introduce us.
He denied it badly.
Emily was thirty.
Dark hair.
Quick smile.
Very direct.
We spent most of that first evening talking about terrible apartments we'd lived in after college.
At one point, she asked what I did outside work.
I said, "Woodworking."
Her eyes lit up.
"Seriously?"
"Sometimes."
"Furniture?"
"Mostly things that almost qualify as furniture."
She laughed.
"What does that mean?"
"I built a coffee table recently."
"Good?"
"It has four legs."
"Strong start."
"It used to have three and a half, structurally."
I liked her immediately.
Not in a dramatic way.
There were no fireworks.
No instant certainty.
I simply wanted to keep talking.
We had coffee the next weekend.
Then dinner.
Emily knew I'd been engaged.
I didn't hide it.
On our third date, she asked what happened.
I gave her the short version.
"My fiancée cheated with her boss."
Emily winced.
"That's rough."
"Yeah."
"Still complicated?"
"No."
"Good."
That was it.
No interrogation.
No competition with a ghost.
Our relationship developed slowly.
I liked slowly.
Sarah and I had once been good too.
I knew that.
I wasn't going to pretend past betrayal meant every future relationship was guaranteed to fail.
But I also wasn't going to confuse intensity with compatibility again.
Emily was ambitious, but in a grounded way.
She wanted her own design studio someday.
She also understood budgets.
She traveled, but didn't treat ordinary life like a prison.