Heartless by Winter Renshaw Page B

conversation around and wind up exactly where we started . . . with him thinking I’m a lunatic.”
    Wren lifts herself up from the table, shuffling across the kitchen in a pair of ratty bunny slippers she’s had since college.
    “Well, then, sister,” she says, slipping her arm around my shoulder. “Guess you’re going to have to settle for never knowing.”
    Exhaling, I nod. I know Wren’s right. I need to let this go. I need to accept the fact that I’m never going to have answers, and that ultimately, it’s none of my business.
    If only it were that simple.
    Saying goodnight to my sister, I take my phone from my purse and head into my room to wash up for bed. Clicking on the bedside lamp, I grab the notebook from the tabletop and roll to my back, skimming through as if some giant glaring clue is going to pop out at me.
    Flipping to the back jacket, I catch a glimpse of a tiny white slip of paper tucked away behind the cover. I’m not sure how I’d never spotted it until now, maybe it was hidden too well, but a quick tug and it slips right out.
    It appears to be a note folded six times, and upon closer inspection, the handwriting is distinctly feminine.

    D earest ,
    What happened last night was amazing and incredible. Never in my life has a man’s love brought me to my knees and made me question all the truths my heart claimed to know. I cried in the library after you left. I cried for us. I cried for him. I cried because ultimately, my heart knows that this is going to get complicated and that none of us can come out of this unscathed.
    I love you. So much. But I also love him. So much.
    Even on our worst days, my bond with him is endless and shatterproof. And on my worst days, my love for you is a permanent, tangled mess of a knot.
    Dearest, the thing is that one of you has my heart and the other owns my soul. I love and need you both in ways no one could ever comprehend.
    I’m a selfish woman. I know that. I won’t pretend to be worthy of your love. Or his. There are times I wish one of you would realize I’m not half the woman you think I am. And there are times I imagine you moving on. But the mere thought of either of you looking at another woman the way you look at me blinds me with envy.
    You’re a fool for loving me, baby.
    And I’m wicked for allowing it.
    Where do we go from here?
    Yours forever ,
    K.

12
    A ce

    I haven’t looked at her photo in almost a year.
    Standing before my hall closet, I flick the light on and glance up at the brown shoebox on the top shelf.
    It’s like our past lives in that box. Or at least the memories of us do. Sometimes I struggle with the reality that what we had is over and done, never to return, despite the fact that it felt it would last forever.
    I was so convinced she loved me with an infallible intensity, even on our worst days.
    I was one hundred percent certain we were going to spend our lives together, that there was no one better suited for me.
    I was sure a life without her would be akin to trying to breathe under water.
    Turns out, I was nothing more than a damn fool.
    I’m more upset with myself for believing her empty promises than anything else.
    Pulling the box out, it feels a lot smaller than I remembered, and maybe that’s a metaphor for our relationship, but I’m too exhausted to think that hard about her tonight. I tuck it under my arm and take it to the fireplace.
    It’s June, and the AC is running on high, but it feels like a good time to light a fire.
    Dropping to my knees, I pop the lid off the box, glancing down at the photo that rests on top of piles of love letters and cards and the kinds of sappy mementos a lovestruck man might think meant something at the time.
    “Kerenza.” I say her name out loud, though I’m not sure why.
    It feels foreign in my mouth, though my chest tightens at its familiarity.
    She’s grinning in the photo, perched on the edge of a sailboat just outside of Martha’s Vineyard. Kerenza’s wearing nothing