It’s supposed to hurt this much. I keep telling myself that over and over again.

That’s what a breakup is. It’s pain. It’s removing someone you once loved from your life. Erasing them as if they don’t exist. As if they’ve died. And that’s the most painful thing one can experience.

That’s why it hurts so much. Because I’m supposed to be in agony.

“You look so tired,” I hear Jules say before she rests her hand on my shoulder. Standing in my small kitchen, with its clutter and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, she looks so out of place here. “Are you alright?” she asks me softly.

Before I can answer, the sounds of Maddie and Sue laughing over something drift into the room. The wine has been flowing, and half of the only remaining box of pizza is left on the counter. It’s what I said I came in here for, but really I’d just remembered my time with Evan last night and then this morning. And I just wanted to be alone for a minute.

“You can tell me anything, Kat,” Jules says in a voice so full of empathy. I’ve always loved the person she is. But never more than now.

“I don’t think I am alright and I don’t know if I ever will be,” I tell her and then arch my neck to stare at the ceiling, keeping my eyes open and trying not to cry.

“Is it normal to cry so much?” I ask her. “To be this emotional and this exhausted?”

“When you lose someone you love, yes.” She says the words so easily, sending a wave of calm through my body, but even that makes me feel that much more exhausted.

“I just wish I was past this stage.”

“It’ll happen before you know it. One day, the reminders won’t hurt so badly. The mention of his name won’t cut you to shreds. One day it’ll feel like it’s supposed to be this way.”

“But I don’t know if it is,” I confess to her and then hear Sue walk in from the dining room.

Her wine glass clinks on the counter as she sets it down. And then she catches a glimpse of me, her expression morphing to one of sympathy. An expression I learned to hate growing up, but right now, while I’m weak and feeling so lost, it’s an expression that makes me lean into her when she opens her arms.

“You’re alright, babe,” she says softly and wraps her arms around me.

“Aw,” I hear Maddie coo as she makes her way into the room.

“Let it all out,” Sue says but I shake my head, my hair ruffling on her shoulder as I sniffle. Sue smells like wine. She sways a little and squeezes me tight. She’s definitely more than tipsy.

“I’m sorry guys. It wasn’t supposed to turn into this,” I say as I stand up straight and pull my shit together. Sue tries to hold on to me a little longer, but I push her away. I can handle this. At one point in my life I was so good at being alone.

It takes a few deep breaths and Sue filling the empty glasses of wine on the counter for me to get over whatever this breakdown was.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s a sad time no matter how much you don’t want it to be,” Maddie’s the first to say something and Jules nods. I expect a retort from Sue about celebrating or some shit like that, but she nods as well.

“It’s going to be okay though,” Jules says and then Sue chimes in with, “You’ve got us, babe. We’ll always be here for you, and that’s all you need.”

“Well maybe a vibrator too,” Sue adds a moment later and a genuine laugh erupts from my lips. It’s short and unexpected, and fills the room. But it felt so good to laugh. To smile. To feel anything other than this darkness that’s a constant shadow over me.

“Do you want a glass?” Sue asks me, nearly spilling the wine from a glass filled too high as she tries to hand it to me. I haven’t had a drink all night.

“If I do, I’m going to pass out.” Just as I answer, another yawn hits me. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sleep.” Well not the nights Evan sleeps with me, but I can’t tell them that.

“I’ll take it,” Maddie offers and immediately sets it back down on the counter.

“So it’s really over?” Sue asks and then takes a sip. For the first time, I see something in her eyes I haven’t before. Not when it came to me and Evan. I see sorrow. Or maybe I just want to see it.

I nod my head, ignoring how the emotions swell up again. I haven’t told them that he cheated on me back when we first started dating. I can’t admit it. I don’t want to say the words out loud and make them real. I don’t want them to see him as a villain. I love him too much to paint him in that light. Or maybe it’s the shame that I still love him even after knowing what he did.

“We’re just leading two different lives.” I shrug and add, “But we always were, you know?”

“And he doesn’t want to change?” Maddie asks. There’s always hope in Maddie. And I wish I could hold on to that.

“Men don’t change,” Sue says woefully. “I’m sorry. I’m doing it again,” she says, shaking her head. “Sometimes it still hurts, you know? And I don’t want you to go through what I did. I promise you, it’s the last thing I want for you.” Her voice gets a little tight, but she shakes it off quickly.

I love Sue, and I remember how hard her divorce was on her. But I swear this is different. It has to be.

“He said he wants to fix it,” I answer as I watch Maddie sip from the glass without picking it up. My lips tug into an asymmetrical smile for just a moment at the sight.

“It’s not what he says.” The hardness in her voice is absent, but there’s still a finality in her statement. “Why would he change? He’s been this way for years. What would make him want something different?”

It’s meant to be a rhetorical question, but the answer rings clear in my head. He did something bad. Something that he needed an alibi for.

I stare at the dark red liquid. Sue’s voice turns to white noise as she tells a story about something. I don’t know if it’s the first time he’s needed an alibi. Or the second or the third. But it’s the first time he changed. I knew something was off before the article. Before he told me anything. Before the lies.

I knew something was different.

And I didn’t even bother to ask him what he’d done.