My phone rang, vibrating off my nightstand. I picked it up, staring at the caller ID.

It was a number I didn’t recognize, but I knew exactly who it was.

Lying on my bed, I rolled over and pushed my face into the pillow. The house had long since gone quiet, so the vibration was an unwelcome interruption in an otherwise silent night.

I waited until it stopped, until the screen went black. And then I placed it on the table, both regretting not answering and mentally patting myself on the back.

Staring at the painting I’d brought to my room, my eyes traced the swirl, over and over again. The vibrating from my phone, again, stopped me in my tracks, and I blinked several times before I looked back at it.

It was the same number.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I answered.

“Six,” I said.

There was silence on the other line for several beats. The part of me that had mentally patted myself on the back was now urging me to hang up. But I waited.

“Mira.”

The warm timbre of his voice made my hand tremble. “It’s late.” I didn’t know what time it actually was, but the sky out of my window was dark, and my body was in that almost-asleep phase.

“I know. That’s why I called at this hour.”

His statement resonated within me, a reminder that he hadn’t forgotten the parts of me he’d known. The manic Mira, who was nocturnal.

“What do you want?” I asked. And reminded myself to breathe. It didn’t feel real yet, that he was calling me and talking to me like the last three years hadn’t happened.

I heard a sigh on the other end of the line, but he didn’t say anything.

“How’d you get my number?”

“Really? Think about who you’re talking to,” he answered. At least that was a question he had an answer to.

“If there isn’t a reason for your call, I need to go.” I hesitated before adding, “I have to get up early.”

“You never get up early.”

“I have to get up for work.”

“Right, you have a job,” he said dully. This conversation was a reminder of everything we had been, which only illuminated everything we no longer were.

“I have a couple jobs, actually. Remember, I’m a caterer?” It wasn’t the entire truth, but Six didn’t know that.

“You’ve changed.” He sounded almost unhappy about that, as if the Mira he’d known was someone he missed. The messy Mira, the completely irresponsible, irrational Mira—I was still a bit of those things, but my edges were worn down, my splinters sanded away by years of sobriety and healthy distractions.

There was a bruise upon my heart, and his words reached in and jabbed at it, deepening the ache I hadn’t known I was feeling. “People change. I have.” I swallowed. “I had to.”

“You’re the one who pushed me away.”

“But you didn’t have to leave.”

“My options were to leave you or let you bleed. Why the fuck do you think I chose the former? Jesus Christ.”

“Because it was easier.”

“I’ve always told you I didn’t want easy. I just wanted you.”

The air rushed from my lungs and I was thankful to be sitting down. I held onto the couch with my free hand, gripping the cushions under my fingers. And as my heart slowed its pace I felt a smile, a secret smile, spread my lips, knowing he hadn’t gotten over it yet. He hadn’t completely let go of me.

Why that pleased me, I couldn’t say.

“Mira?” he asked in my silence. “Why I called you...”

“Yeah?” My heart stilled along with my hand.

“Don’t cater my wedding.” The tone of his voice had changed, his words clipped.

With equally clipped words, and a heart bleeding its grief, I said, “Goodbye, Six.”

I powered down my phone and, though it was difficult, I didn’t throw it. I dropped it to the floor, gently enough not to crack the screen but hard enough to echo my hurt in an inanimate object.

And then I calmly stood up and grabbed a paintbrush, dipping it in blue paint. I turned, facing the canvas and dragged the swirl a little bit longer.

It was the first time I’d touched it in years.

* * *

The morning after my phone call with Six, I arrived at the bakery, once again earlier than usual.

I worked through the dough, letting each ball rise individually, as I worked on more. When they’d risen sufficiently, I placed them in the waiting pans.

Holding my scoring knife over the dough for a moment, I tried to talk myself out of it. On some level, it wasn’t right. But on another, it was better than causing harm to myself.

I told myself I didn’t need it. I told myself that the emotion would slide right out of me, slick like oil. My impulses were more powerful than the voices inside my head, however, and I drew my scoring knife across the bread’s top in six diagonal strokes. I stopped immediately after the sixth and dropped the knife on the counter to keep myself from continuing for a seventh.

It was a secret I kept to myself, scoring the bread loaves I worked on. Normally, I scored each loaf seven times, mockingly so. Mocking his memory.

Seeing Six had pushed forth all the memories I’d long ago locked in a vault. And speaking to him the night before had pushed them forward, straining against my skull, leaving little room for other thought.

Something I’d learned from Jacob’s dad, Dr. Brewer, when I’d been reconciling with my past and my present, was to be careful who I allowed in my life going forward. Because you could tell someone to go to hell, to leave your life and not return. You could force them from your life. You could force their presence from your present. But you couldn’t force their presence from your past, from your memories. Those people would forever hold a piece of your history and often the memory came to the surface unwillingly.

I thought of Jacob and felt somewhat guilty for scoring the bread six times. It was the only way for me to acknowledge the hold Six still had over me. My medium for unspoken thought was often on cotton canvas, stretched over wooden boards. But at 4:30 in the morning, my canvas was dough.

As I washed my hands, I looked at the undersides of my wrists, at the lines that split what could have been pretty skin. Six prominent lines on the left, seven on the right. It reminded me that not too long ago, my skin had been the canvas upon which I painted my despair.

And it was why, above my scars, I’d had tattoos permanently inked into my skin.

I had three tattoos in all. The Buddha quote on my left wrist, a small semi-colon on my right, and fight, backwards above my heart. The Buddha quote had been inspired by Jacob. The semi-colon was inspired by Brooke and invalidated my thoughts about beginnings and endings—that there could be a pause. And fight, well, was inspired by Six. The three people who’d made the most impact upon my life were forever commemorated in art, on my skin. Without Jacob, I wouldn’t have found my way with art, and I wouldn’t have found Brooke. Without Brooke, I wouldn’t have a home. Without Six, I wouldn’t have anything.

The wrist tattoos were the only ones available for just anyone to see. But fight was solely for me, a private secret I’d made to myself. So when I looked in the mirror, got a really good look at myself, I could read the word perfectly.

An hour after, I was at the studio I leased in Jacob’s dad’s building. It was modest, one room with glass windows and floors that bowed in the chill of the winter. But it was cheap—a priority—and most importantly, it was the only place in the city that was solely mine.

That day, I was training one of my clients to hit with purpose. The music in the studio was loud, good to get the blood pumping, but not loud enough for her not to hear my instructions.

I patted her arm, indicating to her to release my arm. “Okay, Denise.” I retrieved the rope across the room. “Rope can be used dozens of ways to disarm you.” I held the rope between both hands, taut in the air.

Denise eyed it warily. She was a new client, referred to me by one of Dr. Brewer’s connections. A victim of a random assault, she was still skittish around me, so I had to talk her through everything I was doing.

“If you feel like someone is approaching you from behind, turn around to face them. You never want your back to them. It puts you at an instant disadvantage. So, let’s try it. Face me.” Denise repositioned her legs so she was eye-to-eye. “If someone plans to choke you with something from behind, they’re not going to be able to if you’re like this – you’re throwing them off their game right away. Now, if you’re distracted or just not paying attention to your surroundings, they can quickly loop the rope around your neck from behind. Turn around.”

She obliged, and I watched as her fists curled. I had to be gentle with her, as I knew this was how she’d been attacked.

“Let’s say you’re walking—start walking now—and,” I came up behind her, “someone wraps this around your neck.” Easing out a breath, I swung the rope over her head and let it rest against the front of her throat as I held the ends in each of my hands. I watched her tremble, swallow, and her hands come up twice before she dropped them again.

I didn’t let myself get attached to my clients, ever—not since Brooke—but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel for them, for the things they went through. I knew that hell wasn’t only a mental place, occupied alone. Hell could be a sketchy street late at night. And people didn’t come to me without a healthy dose of fear already in their veins.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Let me show you what to do.” I pulled on the rope just enough for it to put light pressure on her throat. “Your instinct is to grab the rope and try to pull it off. But that’s not going to work; you have your big ol’ head in the way. What you need to do, the moment someone puts that rope around you, is turn and shove your hands into their face. Let’s try it.”

She walked across the room, her back to the mirrored wall so she couldn’t see me coming. When I tried to loop the rope around her, instincts took over and she grabbed at it before clumsily turning around, defeat plain in her eyes.

“It’s fine—remember, you’re fighting your instinct. Let’s try again.”

I sent her back across the room and crept up behind her, slipping the rope around her. That time she ducked, causing me to inadvertently put more pressure than I intended around her neck.

“Come on, Denise.” I may have been understanding, but I was still impatient. Impatience was a good motivator, though, so I regularly employed it while training. “Someone is sneaking up behind you and you need to fight for your fucking life. Fight harder than you’ve ever fought before.”

Denise looked at me, eyes full of nightmares.

“Push it out, Denise. That was yesterday. This is today. That’s not gonna happen again.”

This time, when I slid the rope around her neck she twisted around, but backed up, pulling me along with her and getting both of us nowhere. I needed to try something different.

“I’m going to talk you through this, repeatedly. We’re going to do it over and over until it becomes natural for you, all right? Think of it like a dance, with steps to remember.”

Denise nodded and wiped the sweat off her head. We weren’t working hard enough for her to sweat from exertion, so I knew it was nerves. When I looped the rope around her neck the next time, I yelled, “Turn!” As she spun, I yelled, “Hands out!” She thrust her hands forward and waved them in front of me. “You want to try to aim for my face, not show off your jazz hands.” I let go of the rope a moment and held her wrists, bringing her hands up. “Hit them here, poke them here,” I gestured, manipulating her fingers to follow the vulnerable spots on my face.

We repeated that exercise five more times, with me barking orders to her. On the fifth try, she hit me before I could instruct her to, hard enough that I felt something pop.

“Oh, Mira!” she exclaimed as I cupped my nose. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hit you so hard!”

I pulled my hand away, saw the blood pooling in my palm, spreading across its creases. And then I laughed. “Good job, Denise.” I smiled up at her, proud.

She smiled back at me, tentative at first. And as I looked at my hand and the blood spreading into the fine lines of my palm, I couldn’t help but think of Six, of the first time I’d made him bleed.

* * *

After sending Denise off with some hand wraps for practice at home, I locked my gear into the tiny bathroom cabinet and changed into my running shoes.

My days were rigorous with activity meant to tire me. The more exhausted I was, the less likely I was to dwell on my past. As much as I needed the physical activity, I needed the mental activity, too. Dr. Brewer had described my running as healthy only if I was exercising my mind in the same way, forcing myself to think, to process. I could lie in bed with limbs weak from tireless activity and still have my head running loops. That was why I ran so much, my eyes sharp for other pedestrians and cars as I wove down alleys and streets, crossing at the lights when it was safe. Well, mostly safe.

Safe Mira. Sober Mira.

Some things had changed in the three years since I’d given Six an ultimatum, but other things hadn’t, like the fact that he still affected me while barely trying.

In the years since our relationship had fallen apart at my doing, I’d thought of him daily, hourly. I hadn’t fallen into any relationships since then, preferring the company of myself to the company of someone who was just a warm body and nothing more. I’d caught myself dozens of times, seeing his hair, watching his gait, only to follow the person for several blocks and realize I’d been mistaken.

Mira of 2013 had a cellphone with only a handful of contacts, something Mira of the Mira-and-Six era hadn’t understood. She took vitamins. She ate meals. Mira of 2013 was still slender, but in a different way – lean muscle over bone, her angles less sharp but just as defined.

Despite all the change, I still ached for Six. I still woke up alone and reached across the bed for him, forgetting for five seconds that he wouldn’t be there. Disappointment ran on a loop once I realized that he wasn’t there and he wouldn’t be there.

But the five seconds before that realization were always my favorite five seconds of the day.

If I was honest with myself, it wasn’t Victoria that bothered me nearly as much as the fact that Six had moved on. That he’d been able to. He’d looked at another woman across a crowded room and felt something that I’d only felt with him. He’d approached her, maybe, and made a date. He’d taken her number, probably, and had seen her casually for at least a little while. And at some point, he’d decided this woman was the one worth getting on his knees for, worth making a promise that meant forever. His lemniscate. His ten.

That’s what she had to be, for me. On the love scale, from one to ten, he’d loved me at a nine once. But the ten, not ever. Like a dangling carrot, holding it over me. Maybe if I’d been stronger, he would have loved me more. Maybe if I’d never forced him to clean up after me, that would have push him to ten. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But, Victoria was his ten. If Six was the yardstick for measuring how much I could love someone else, I might as well throw the fucking yardstick out because nothing—no one would measure. The way I loved him, that all-consuming, soul-marking kind of love…it was a once in a lifetime love. There’d never be another like it.

And I was glad for that, because I didn’t think I could survive another love like the love I had for Six.

Before I knew what I was doing, my steps had led me to the Wharf. I mostly avoided the Wharf, unless I was feeling the need to ache for him, the need to feel his presence. I felt, for so long, that he lived in my bones. But years of separation made me think that while my mind couldn’t forget him, my bones and my blood were leaving the memory behind. My muscles ached for the weight of him on top of me, for his hand in mine, fingers laced as if the gaps between my own were made perfectly with Six’s hands in mind, for his arms around me. If I squeezed my lids shut hard enough, I could nearly imagine it.

In the Wharf, I saw Six everywhere. I ran past the restaurant of our first job together, before doubling back and looking in, watching the wait staff serve customers who seemed startled by the sweaty woman staring into the window.

I closed my eyes and backed myself up against the cool brick. I clenched a fist when my hand recalled the weight of his as he’d pulled me from the restaurant, the first job of many he’d bring me along for.

He’d held my hand long after he’d needed to. Long after the mask had fallen and he’d forgotten to pretend to be Jonathan.

Something sharp slid under my ribs and pressed its point into my heart with that thought. My breath stilled, holding in my lungs, because I feared, deeply, that if I moved even a millimeter, I’d lose the feeling, even if only in memory.

In all my thirty-six years, not once had I felt what Six made me feel. In the three years since him, I hadn’t held hands with anyone, afraid their flesh would burn Six’s imprint from mine.

No one saves us but ourselves. The words on my wrist covered six horizontal scars. My fingertips traced the letters and then dragged over a few of the lines.

But Six had saved me. Many times. And when it had been his turn to ache, I’d left him drowning in his sea of grief.

A breeze blew through, removing with it Six’s ghost, reminding me that that was all he was to me. A ghost who had loved me once.