The next time I saw Petra it was in my territory—the hollow ting of freshly washed glasses, the smell of orange rinds, and the chatter of people who were momentarily happy, their real miseries forgotten in the company of friends and food. A good place, a safe place. I was bartending on a Friday night, lifting warm glasses from their drying racks and shelving them. I didn’t usually work Fridays, but the guys were playing a show in Bainbridge and I’d picked up the extra shift to stay busy.

I’d moved into David’s condo the month before, as he’d appealed to my finances, saying it was a smart move to live with him and save money. I thought that was a smart move on his part. Petra came in with a group of friends, each of them carrying a brightly wrapped parcel in their hands. A birthday party, but for whom? They sat in the dining room in earshot of the bar. I strained my ears to hear them. And speak they did. Petra’s tongue was loose and liberated by the strong drinks I was making.

It was her birthday and she was talking about David. I could make out the excitement in her voice even over the din of the Friday night crowd.

“You just…you have to see him to know how talented he is.”

“I guess we’ll see tonight,” a male voice said. I could hear the mocking in his voice.

“Petra’s boyfriend,” someone else laughed. “She wishes,” someone else called out. I heard them all laugh, including Petra who didn’t deny it.

I winced, walked to the opposite side of the bar so I couldn’t hear any more of it. I’d not been in this position before where a woman was actively pursuing the man I was seeing. Her worship of him made me feel untethered. I didn’t know how to react or respond. David would blow it off if I told him. Men did that, treated female fawning like it wasn’t a thing, like a woman couldn’t lure them away with cunning and pussy. They could. I’d done it myself a time or two.

Since Petra had arrived in David’s life I’d taken to buying lingerie. I’d never felt the need to prop up my tits, decorate my ass with lace and ribbons until a much prettier, much more self-assured woman came along. And now the frilly garments were a spreading disease in David’s condo, filling drawers and hanging on doors, littering the bedroom floor in blacks, pale pinks, and deep oxblood. Every time I put one on, I felt cheapened. David didn’t pay much attention to any of it. He liked what was underneath the lace and silk. He’d push them aside, pull them off without looking. He wanted the warm soft skin, and yet I kept buying them, a shield against other women. I was sexy, I was kinky, I was the type of girl who got trussed up to have sex. It became so bad that on my birthday David handed me a box. Inside was a lilac nightie cocooned in floral tissue paper. I wanted to cry when I saw it. Another nightie, another stupid, uncomfortable nightie.

“Do you like it?” David asked. “I know you like that sort of thing…”

That sort of thing. He thought the nighties were about me. Love for him thrived inside of me, his willingness to buy ridiculous getups because he thought I enjoyed them. I held it close to my chest, nodding.

Petra’s friends all knew about her infatuation with David. They were going to his show after dinner, the show I was missing because I had chosen to work. I pulled off my apron and set it on the counter, then I went to find my manager. I’d feign illness, I’d tell him I’d been wanting to vomit all night and that if he didn’t let me go I’d…

He let me leave. I was out of there before Petra and her friends had finished their dinners and watched her unwrap her presents. It was wrong what I was doing. But, I needed to see for myself. I thought about wearing a costume, something to hide my face—a wig perhaps, but it seemed so contrived and silly. So, I went as myself and waited near the bar which was as far away from the stage as you could get.

They arrived after me, pierced and tattooed, roots in need of dyeing. Petra moved toward the stage while her friends went to the bar to get drinks. Birthday princess. I watched them order a round of shots and carry the little cups to their boyfriend-stealing queen. What had been in those brightly colored packages? Lingerie…? Lipstick…?

David set down his guitar and pulled the mic stand up to a stool. One leg propped on a rung of the stool, he spoke while lowering the mic, telling jokes to make the audience laugh. I smiled despite myself. He was good, he was getting better every day.

“We have someone special in the crowd today,” he said.

I was roped, looking around like everyone else. Would we know the someone special if we saw them? He’d not said anything to me about there being a special guest watching the show tonight. Someone opened a door nearby and fresh air rushed in, light fingers over my heated skin. I closed my eyes for a minute wishing I’d not come, feeling foolish about my paranoia. It was me David loved, me David came home to every night. There would always be women who’d lock their affections on him.

Musicians were the gods that gave melody to pain, summed it up in rhyme and rhythm. It was easy to feel connected to the person who strummed, or keyed, or sang recognition into your existence. And it was easier to believe they wrote songs just for you. This is mine, they’re singing about what’s mine. How much more extreme did this feeling become when the person singing your pain looked like David Lisey?

I opened my eyes trying to guess which song was next, what he’d play for the special guest he forgot to tell me about. When he sat on the stool something intimate would be played. His only instrument would be his voice and sometimes his guitar. But his guitar sat neatly beside him as he spoke into the mic, searching the audience with his eyes.

“Someone special,” he said. And then my flesh crawled, my head spun.

“Where are you, Petra? Happy Birthday. Let’s all sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to my friend, Petra.”

The crowd erupted in a badly timed, badly chorused version of the birthday song while Petra rocked happily in front of the stage, staring up at David adoringly. Her friends wrapped their arms around her shoulders, taking videos on their phones. I moved toward the door, my head bowed, my heart hammering. When I was free of the club I took deep gulping breaths of air, but I couldn’t get enough; my lungs felt small and shallow. I walked to the corner of the street, then turned around and went back to the club. I’d stepped in a big wad of gum and my shoes stuck to the sidewalk leaving webby trails of pink. I’d go backstage, wait for the show to be over, and confront David.

How had he known it was her birthday, or that she was coming? Did they text each other? Did he see her in the day while I was at work? Did she come over to the condo? I turned around at the last moment, requesting an Uber. In two minutes I was tucking my legs into the tight space behind the driver’s seat, asking to be taken to the ferry. I was a passive aggressive coward. That sort of thing clung to your flesh like a smell, rot turned inside out. People could sense it on you; it caused them to be distrustful. It was hard to make friends when you had the smell, hard to keep them when you did make them. You held back from them and they held back from you, an even trade of nothingness. It was a wonder David ever got past it, but now he was there, in the middle, unaffected.

The condo was dark when I got back. Usually David left the light on in the kitchen when we weren’t home. He said it was depressing to come back to a dark house. But, this time he’d turned it off before he left. I wondered if it was an omen. I changed out of the jeans and shirt I was wearing and back into my uniform. David texted me an hour later and said he was on his way home. He never stayed out with the guys anymore, who went for drinks after. He came home to me, tired and sweaty, smiling so big I couldn’t help smiling myself.

When he walked in the door, I was counting my tips in the kitchen. I hadn’t turned on the light, I wanted to see what he’d say.

“Why is it so dark in here?” he said.

“You forgot to leave the light on.”

My voice sounded accusing but it wasn’t because of the light, it was because of Petra and the birthday song he sang to her.

“Did I?” he said. “A mistake.”

He kissed me on my temple and I could smell the cigarette smoke in his hair and on his jacket. Could I smell Petra? Had she hugged him before he left, said thank you for the song? I breathed deeply trying to smell the truth, but there was only David.

“How was the show?” I asked.

“Great.”

He moved over to sort through the mail, distracted. I waited for him to say more, tell me that Petra and her friends had shown up on her birthday, but he didn’t. Weren’t we the couple who shared things about our day, our observations? Hadn’t we texted or come home many times to say to each other: “I saw Ferdinand walking down the street today. He looked rough…” or “That girl, Ginger, the weird one who comes to every show, she was at the gelato shop today; she ordered carrot gelato.”

We were information sharers, conspirators, psychoanalyzers of our friends, so why then wouldn’t he tell me that he saw Petra, that he sang her a song?

Something had changed.