Or maybe it was, just not how I wanted. I glanced at the glowing kitchen window near the deck when your shadow dulled it. You were washing dishes, drying something and putting it away. Probably a wineglass. I thought about your rough hands over mine that night under the stars.

But I also thought of dinner: silence emphasized by the awkward scrape of silver on china and whipcracks from the fireplace in the living room.

I could feel the fight coming. The uneasiness in the belly before the show, the static tingle on the skin before the storm. A useless thing to feel, the warning changing nothing. We’d fight because it’s what we do now, especially when Daniel is staying with your parents and doesn’t have to bear witness to what his parents have turned into. You’d end up on the guest bed, and I’d know you were thinking of me, looking at our star or not.

We should have never gone to the cabin. It was a mistake. We could get away from the city, back under the stars, but we still brought ourselves with us.