“Are you going to campus today?” Rachel called out from the kitchen.

“Uhhh…probably not,” Alice answered without looking up from her laptop.

Rachel’s head leaned out of the kitchen. “But you are planning on getting dressed at some point, right?”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom. I’ll remember to shower while you’re at work.”

She’d been crashing on Rachel’s couch for the last month, thanks to Rachel’s generosity and Rachel’s roommate’s propensity to spend most of her time at her boyfriend’s apartment. Not for much longer though. Soon, Alice would be moving to a new place with her very own room and a brand-new set of roommates.

Her apartment search had gone much better this time around. One good thing about having your life publicly crash and burn was that it helped you figure out who your friends were. A surprising number of people had stepped forward, not to gawk at the traffic accident that was her romantic life, but to offer real assistance.

Rachel had offered a temporary place to stay with the full blessing of her roommate, who hadn’t even known Alice before she’d volunteered her couch. Alice’s grad school friend Anh had hooked her up with someone who was studying search engines and mediated internet interactions, who’d had lots of advice for scrubbing Alice’s online footprint. Mike had said he knew of a producer on the hunt for a house sitter if Alice wanted to give that another go, but she had vetoed the idea straightaway—the last thing she needed in her life was more celebrity. Fortunately, Pete had come through by knowing a guy who knew a guy who needed to sublet his room in a three-bedroom apartment he shared with two other people.

The sublet was only for six months, but by then—fingers crossed—Alice would have graduated and found a full-time data science job, and would be in a position to afford a decent place of her own. She’d already started looking into a few companies who were hiring—two local and one in Austin, though she couldn’t really see herself moving to Texas—and the market seemed promising. Far more promising than the higher education market, in point of fact.

“When was the last time you left the apartment?” Rachel asked, wandering out of the kitchen with a granola bar in one hand and travel mug of coffee in the other.

“Yesterday. When I went to the grocery store.”

“That was two days ago.”

“Whatever.” Alice shrugged. “I’ve got to finish formatting all these references so I can submit the draft to my committee by tomorrow.”

“Do you have a date for your defense yet?”

“Not yet. That’s why I have to finish all this stupid formatting. So I can get my approval to defend and they’ll finally set a date.”

“Well, let me know. I’ll take off work that day.”

Alice looked up from her computer, more grateful than she could articulate for her friend. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t, but I’m doing it anyway.” Rachel threaded the hand holding the granola bar through her purse straps as she stepped into a pair of shoes beside the door. “Lock the door behind me, okay?”

Alice gave her a thumbs-up. “Have a good day!”

When Rachel was gone, Alice got up and locked the apartment door as instructed, then headed into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. She still had a lot to do before she turned in her draft tomorrow, but overall she felt positive about her chances of finishing.

She was feeling a lot better about everything these days, though it had been pretty rough going for a while there. Rachel had good reason to be concerned. There’d been more than a few days when Alice hadn’t budged from the cocoon she’d made for herself on the couch—much less showered or gotten dressed.

It hadn’t helped matters that Troublemakers 4 was in heavy rotation on one of the cable networks. Getting over someone was made more complicated when you could turn on the television at almost any time and see their face in crystal clear 1080p HD. Alice was ashamed to admit how many times she’d watched it while Rachel was at work.

She’d always start out telling herself she was only in it for the scene where Griffin’s character emerges shirtless and soaking wet from the decontamination shower, but then she’d end up glued to the screen until the end when he cries over the woman he wasn’t able to save. Griffin cried really well on-screen. Not all actors were great criers. Some of them, their faces would get too snotty, too red, or too twisted up in pain. Griffin was perfect, striking just the right balance between emotional vulnerability and handsome suffering. Probably because it was completely fake. He wasn’t a crier at all in real life.

In real life Griffin was stoic and resigned. He’d never cry over a woman. Alice watched the movie over and over because he displayed more emotion in that stupid movie than he ever had with her.

Alice had cried constantly for the first few days post-breakup. After that she’d managed not to cry so much, but she’d still felt like crying all the time. Even now, she risked tearing up if she let herself think about him too much.

The only time she didn’t feel like crying was when she was working. Her productivity had skyrocketed since she’d moved out of Griffin’s house and onto Rachel’s couch. That had to mean something, right? Even with her whole life in a state of upheaval, she was getting more accomplished now than when she’d been with Griffin. It seemed a clear sign that the situation hadn’t been good for her—for her goals, her career, or her state of mind.

As much as she loved him, they just didn’t work. Their lives were fundamentally incompatible. She wasn’t cut out to be a celebrity’s girlfriend. He’d be much better off with someone at his side who knew how to navigate his world competently. It was for the best this way.

She’d been telling herself that every day, and every day she got a little closer to believing it.

Her new therapist was helping her understand that she hadn’t been ready to jump into a serious relationship. The stuff with Gilchrist had saddled her with a whole baggage carousel of trust issues, and a self-involved actor who went through women like coffee filters probably hadn’t been the best choice for her first attempt at a post-harassment relationship.

No, scratch that. That was her bitterness talking. It wasn’t fair to Griffin.

He had a lot of great qualities, and she believed he’d meant well—even genuinely loved her. They’d just wanted different things out of life, and had very different expectations of one another. They moved in different worlds, and she should have known better than to think he’d make a place for her in his.

It was definitely for the best this way. No matter how much it might still hurt.

If there was one thing Alice had learned in her life, it was that pain faded over time. You got used to the new status quo, even if you didn’t like it. You could get used to anything in time.

Even this Griffin-shaped hole in her chest.

Work. Work was her focus now. Her priority. Finishing her dissertation was the key to everything. To graduating and getting a job outside of academia. To moving on and starting the next phase of her life.

She’d finally taken Griffin’s advice about ignoring what was being said about her online, and had deleted all her old social media accounts, creating new, completely private and anonymous ones that she only told her friends and real-life acquaintances about. She’d also stopped obsessively following hashtags and reading gossip sites to see what people were saying about her.

Lucky for Alice, internet infamy didn’t necessarily translate to real world celebrity. She could still go out in public without being recognized or noticed. Being outed in a few online fan enclaves wasn’t enough to turn her into a public figure outside the internet echo chamber. The photo of her and Griffin had made it onto a few of the tawdrier gossip sites, but they’d kept her name out of it, and the bigger entertainment news sites had ignored the story altogether. Alice assumed she had Griffin and Kimberleigh’s publicists to thank for that. They’d probably pressured the mainstream entertainment press to overlook the photo in exchange for promises of some future scoop or access.

Kimbergriff was still going strong, apparently. The rough patch had been smoothed over by a well-timed shopping trip to Cartier. The stories about Griffin’s infidelity had been drowned out by speculation that they were looking at engagement rings.

Alice knew it was all bullshit. No way was Griffin getting married—especially not to Kimberleigh. She still had the card Kimberleigh had sent with the flowers. Occasionally, she’d pull it out and read it again.

It was a kind gesture. Kimberleigh actually seemed pretty nice, but that didn’t mean Alice should take life advice from her. No matter how well intentioned.

Leaving Griffin had definitely been the right decision to make under the circumstances.

She was ninety-five percent certain. Maybe ninety. But that was still pretty darned certain.

Sure, she wished sometimes that he’d fought harder for her—for them. But for the most part she was relieved it had all been handled so maturely. A clean break. No fuss, no muss. Everyone walking away with their dignity intact—more or less.

A conscious uncoupling.

Wasn’t that what all the celebrities did nowadays?

“You look like warmed-over shit,” Chuck Hammer said, looming over Griffin’s chair.

Griffin acknowledged his costar with a scowl that felt appropriate for the five a.m. call time. “Thanks.”

“Hey, the worse you look, the better I look.” The aging action star lowered himself into the chair next to Griffin with a hearty chuckle. “Keep it up, kid.”

Griffin was glad to be back at work again, and doubly glad to be back with the familiar Troublemakers crew, but he was not in the mood for Chuck’s ribbing this morning. Or any morning, lately. Ever since Alice had left, insomnia had become Griffin’s new roommate, and the two weren’t exactly getting along.

Chuck nudged Griffin with a massive forearm. “You used to be funny. Remember when you were funny?”

“Not really,” Griffin muttered.

He hadn’t been funny since Alice had walked out of his life. Worse, he seemed to have lost the knack of pretending. It was fine when he was acting—when he had someone else’s words to say. It was coming up with his own jokes where he hit a wall. He just didn’t find much of anything humorous anymore.

“Leave him alone.” Merit Lebese wandered over with a forty-ounce tumbler of iced coffee. At forty-one, the handsome South African was the odds-on favorite to be the first black James Bond now that Idris Elba had turned the part down. “Didn’t you hear? He’s got woman troubles.”

Griffin’s scowl deepened.

“What sort of troubles?” Chuck swiveled in his chair and rested his chin in his hands. “Do tell.”

Merit smirked as he sipped his jumbo-sized coffee. “His little girlfriend’s been stepping out on him.”

That was another thing souring Griffin’s mood lately. After all the crow-eating he’d done over the photo with Alice, and everything Sabrina had made him do to smooth things over, they were right back in the same place, only with the roles reversed. Once all the publicity over his alleged affair with Alice had finally died down, everyone—meaning his publicist and Kimberleigh’s publicist—decided it had died down too much. People had started to lose interest in Kimbergriff once it looked like they’d worked everything out. So they’d cooked up some new drama with Kimberleigh’s ex—also fake—to keep the public interested.

Griffin was pissed because it made him look like a chump—although he supposed turnabout was fair play in that regard—but also because it was starting to feel like the whole exercise had been a waste of time and he’d lost Alice for nothing.

Chuck clicked his tongue sympathetically. “Cheating on pretty boy here? Surely not.”

“I need more coffee,” Griffin growled, pushing himself to his feet and leaving his two laughing costars behind him.

He knew they didn’t mean anything by it. They were just taking the piss, as Merit would say. On the last movie, Griffin had loved being included in their friendly hazing, because it had made him feel like one of them.

It wasn’t their fault he had such a short fuse these days. He had only himself to thank for that.

Chuck and Merit both knew his relationship with Kimberleigh was all for show, so they couldn’t have known how close their taunting had come to the bone. A woman had left him a shattered mess.

It had been six weeks since Alice had walked out of his life, and her absence was like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Everything in his house reminded him of her. His couch, his bed, even his dog. Especially his dog. Taco had been in almost as much of a funk as Griffin since she’d left.

The house didn’t feel as much like home anymore, and Griffin didn’t understand why. It was still the same house it had been before she arrived in his life. It hadn’t changed at all. Alice had slipped in and back out again without leaving a trace. Not a tangible one, anyway. Somehow, her ghost lurked in every room, her absence crowding every corner.

Griffin had never felt this way after a breakup before, but then he’d never broken up with someone he’d been in love with before. The force of his feelings had caught him off guard. He didn’t just miss Alice, he mourned for her and for the life he’d thought they would have. They’d only been together for a few weeks as a couple, but apparently in that short time he’d managed to pin all his hopes and dreams on her.

What a mistake that had turned out to be. Never again.

I am enough.

He repeated the mantra his therapist had given him, even though he wasn’t sure repeating memorized phrases in his head was getting him any closer to internalizing the idea behind them. But he repeated them all the same, because it was better than doing nothing.

He’d find himself bowled over by grief at the oddest times these days. In response to TV commercials, offhand remarks, or things that were supposed to be funny—like Chuck and Merit’s teasing. Something completely random would make him think of Alice, and then Griffin would find himself at the bottom of the well again.

The last time he’d felt this lost was after his mother died. He tried not to feel ashamed of that, that he was almost as upset over a girlfriend as he had been over his mother’s death.

I have a right to my own feelings.

That was another one of his therapist’s gems that he had a hard time accepting.

He couldn’t even keep tabs on Alice via social media anymore. She’d deleted all her old accounts, cutting the last lifelines to her he’d had. But when some of the old Las Vegas General crew started following a new, private account with the username @SocGrrl18, he knew it was her.

He didn’t dare send a follow request, so he couldn’t see anything but the profile photo, which was a close-up of Alice’s favorite coffee mug. He’d stare at that tiny round photo sometimes, remembering when he’d bring her coffee in that mug. How she’d sit next to him in bed drinking out of it in the mornings.

“Griff!” Dylan Warren, the mild-mannered director of the second through fifth Troublemakers films, joined Griffin at the craft services table where he was perusing the selection of protein bars.

Steve Houghton, the film’s tattooed stunt coordinator, followed close on Dylan’s heels.

“How are you feeling about the stunt today?” Dylan’s expression, as always, hovered somewhere between vaguely stressed and vaguely concerned—a refreshing change from Jerry Duncan’s perpetual rage-stroke. “Still think you want to do it yourself?”

“Kyle’s prepped and keen to step in,” Steve said, hooking a thumb at Griffin’s stunt double, who was loitering on the opposite side of the soundstage. “Guy really hates sitting around, so if you want to make him happy and give him something to do…”

“Nah, I’m good,” Griffin said, selecting a turkey and cranberry meat bar. One nice thing about the Troublemakers sets was there was always plenty of protein lying around for the muscle-bound cast—although the soundstage did tend to reek of ball sweat and meat farts by the end of the day. “Piece of cake.”

He hated using a stunt double for anything but the most technical, pants-shittingly terrifying stunts. Today was just a simple jump from a twenty-foot platform onto the hood of a parked car. If the car were moving that’d be one thing, but something this simple Griffin could do himself. So what if he wasn’t wild about heights? He’d be wearing a harness, and it wasn’t that drastic a drop. No problem.

Another of his therapist’s mantras—It’s okay to say no—floated through Griffin’s head, and he swept it aside. Better to keep busy. A little fear was preferable to boredom. It would be harder to think about just how empty his life felt without Alice when he was swinging from a testicle-crushing rig two stories in the air.

Alice laid a hand on her knee to stop its errant jiggling. Her stomach felt like it was trying to crawl up through her esophagus and strangle her.

She’d just completed her dissertation defense—a brief talk to present her research followed by forty minutes of questioning by the five members of her committee—and had been ushered into the hall to wait while her committee deliberated.

Regina had told her not to stress too much. A good committee would never let the defense go forward if the work wasn’t up to muster. That was the whole point of all the proposals and meetings and revisions she’d had to go through in order to get here.

Still, Alice was convinced she would be the exception who got into the room and totally bombed. She’d spent hours yesterday practicing her talk, but despite her preparation, today had been the most incoherent performance she’d ever given. The questions had all been reasonable, but she had almost certainly come off like a blithering idiot as her petrified brain struggled to formulate intelligent responses. She’d sweated through her blouse as her tongue tripped over itself and her mouth grew progressively drier no matter how much water she sipped.

And then it had been over. Regina had thanked her, and invited her to step out into the hall while the committee deliberated. “Don’t wander too far off,” she’d advised, as if Alice were in any danger of deciding now was a good time to run out for a burger or some light shopping.

She had run straight to the restroom to relieve her overtaxed bladder after all the water she’d consumed in her nervousness. Rachel and Anh had saved her a seat between them in the hall, and the three now sat in a tense row, listening to the indistinct murmur of voices drifting through the closed conference room door. At this very moment, Alice’s committee could be discussing previously unidentified errors and omissions in the articulation of her methodology and the linkages of theory to her data. They could be asking themselves how she’d ever been allowed to get this far, and strategizing how to let her down gently.

At this point Alice would gladly take a “pass with revisions,” even if it meant more work lay ahead of her instead of the sweet freedom she’d been hoping for. Anything was better than a fail. God, please don’t let it be a fail.

A burst of laughter came from inside the conference room, and Alice exchanged an uncertain glance with Anh. Was that a good sign? Or were they laughing at her pathetic effort to pass off PhD-quality work?

Oh, god, she needed to pee again.

Before she could dash off to the restroom, the conference room door opened and Regina came out. She broke into a smile as her eyes found Alice. “Congratulations, Dr. Carlisle.”

Whoops and cheers broke out around her. Alice was only dully aware of Rachel and Anh’s celebratory exclamations as they hugged her before Regina led her back into the conference room. The other three committee members were smiling and coming forward to congratulate her. There was paperwork to fill out. The department secretary had brought cookies.

She had done it.

Alice had earned her doctorate. She was finished with school forever. She wouldn’t officially graduate until December, but as of today she had completed the requirements for her PhD. There were some minor revisions to be made before submission through the university system, but the biggest hurdle was behind her. She could focus on her job search and the next phase of her professional life. She was free.

They were taking her out for drinks. Anh and Rachel were discussing where everyone should meet. Some of the other graduate students were coming, and Pete would join them later. While they argued over whether the margaritas were better at La Fuente or El Corazon, Alice checked her phone, which had been powered off for the last hour. There was a new voicemail message from a number she didn’t recognize. Probably another spam call. She’d been getting a lot of weird robo-calls in Chinese, whatever that was about.

“The nachos are better at El Corazon,” Alice offered to break the tie, her attention only half on her phone as she hit play and held it to her ear.

Hello, I’m calling for Alice Carlisle, who’s listed as the emergency contact for Griffin Micklethwaite. I’m calling from Regnant Studios to inform you that there’s been an accident and Mr. Micklethwaite has been taken to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai. If you could call me back when you get this message—