Page 14 of Returned Mail

“Nothing.”

She appears in the bathroom doorway, holding a bottle of expired Advil in one hand and what looks like a hotel shampoo bottle from 2019 in the other. Her dark hair is pulled into a messy bun, and she's wearing an oversized T-shirt that says, ‘I’M NOT ARGUING, I'M JUST EXPLAINING WHY I'M RIGHT’. Very on brand.

She holds up the Advil. “This expired two years ago.”

“Google says most medicine is still fine for a while after it expires.”

“Google also tells people every headache is a brain tumor.” She drops it into the garbage bag, and I gasp. “You'll thank me when you don't die from vintage ibuprofen.”

“That's not a thing.”

“Neither is keeping four half-used bottles of conditioner, but here we are.”

“They're different scents.”

“They're all coconut adjacent. Don't fight me on this.” I laugh, and it feels good. Laughing for real after all the shit I've been through lately feels strange. The sound surprises me enough that I stop for a second. Lyann notices, but she doesn't point it out. I'm grateful for that.

We work in comfortable silence for a while, the sound of packing tape and rustling newspaper filling the apartment. Sorting and packing. I move from the kitchen to the living room, where the real emotional landmines are waiting. The bookshelf Sebastian and I built together one Sunday afternoon using instructions that made us both want to commit murder. The throw pillows his mom gave us last Christmas. The framed photo from our trip to Portland, where we're both grinning like idiots outside some famous donut shop.

“What are you going to do with the photos?” Lyann asks.

“I don't know.”

She comes to stand beside me. “It feels wrong to throw them away,” I say. “Like I'm erasing six years of my life.”

“You're not erasing anything.”

I look at her.

“Those years happened,” she says. “They were real. You loved him. He loved you. Whatever happened at the end doesn't mean every single day before it was fake.”

Something in my chest tightens. I look back at the photo. That's the part I can't figure out. How something can be real and still end. How someone can love you and still betray you. How six years can be both the happiest years of your life and the thing that breaks you.

“But,” Lyann continues, “you also don't have to stare at his face every time you're trying to watch television.”

A laugh slips out of me, “So what's the middle ground?”

“A shoebox.”

I glance at her. “Seriously?”

“Put the photos away. Back of the closet. Somewhere you can find them if you ever want them, but not somewhere they get to ambush you every day.”

I look down at the picture again. Then I turn the frame over and remove the back. “The shoe box it is.”

“Frame?”

“Donate.”

“Look at you making decisions.” I place the photograph carefully on the coffee table. Lyann picks up the empty frame and carries it toward the donation box. “And speaking of emotional avoidance⁠—”

“No.” I groan.

We walk toward the bedroom together. I slow down before I reach the doorway. The room looks different now. Emptier. Sebastian came back a few days ago to collect most of his things.

I wasn't here.

Thank God my period came early, and I had to run to the store to pick up some tampons. Now that I think about it, that has been the only moment I’ve been out of the apartment.