Natalia

"How long has it been since you've broken up?" Phillip's question is a simple one, but pokes at the tender wound Samson left in my chest.

"The reunion." I shiver. Something nasty is festering at the bottom of my throat. Words I wanted to throw at Samson but never let myself, circle like vultures, waiting for an opening, a moment of weakness. I squeeze my fists on my knees. "Although Samson clearly thinks we haven't."

"This Friday's reunion?" Phillip throws a confused glance my way.

"Yes, this Friday." My snarl hangs in the air between us. "I don't know about you, but I don't go to that many reunions." The piss in my voice is unwarranted. It's not Phillip's fault my head is pounding, thoughts scraping against the back of my eyes as nails on the glass.

"Sorry. I'm just—"

"I get it." Phillip's hand covers my fist that's still squeezing a napkin from the coffee shop. His fingers slide under mine, urging me to release the hold on myself. I flatten my palm. His remains like a comfortable weight on top, covering mine from knuckles to wrist.

I dead-gaze at the glove compartment in front.

Phillip moves his thumb over my pinkie. "I've been through a breakup or ten."

"I think most of the world is aware." I sound flat, but at least I'm not trying to bite his head off.

"Yeah." He chuckles.

I lift my chin and watch him navigate the straight empty streets of the complex.

"You might have a break-up expert on your hands. I broke up with people, people broke up with me." The corner of his right eye wrinkles with a smile. "I've got most scenarios covered." His self-deprecating humor is the final drop that takes the storm in my chest down to a tropical rain. "So if you need any advice or a shoulder to cry on." He purses his lips and side-eyes me.

"Is that before or after you're done kidnapping me from my workplace?" I can't smile but I don't want to cry either.

"I was thinking of this more like a prison break."

Prison break. Is breaking up with Samson that? Was Kate's view of the last ten years of my life the correct one? And if this is my break, where do I go?

Phillip lifts his hand off mine and places it on the wheel to take a sharp left turn onto the ramp of the highway. I want his hand back. I want some solidity and certainty back into my life. Phillip completes the turn and finds my eyes with his. "Tell me where you want to go and I'll take you there."

He can't take me back into my past where I had my finance, my plan, and all the assurances that I was on the right track. But he can take me back home. "How about you take me to pack my bags. I can't wear Kate's clothes tomorrow."

"Enter it into the GPS." Phillip's gaze points to the screen between us and for a millisecond flies to the V on the shirt that exposes the top of my bra.

I give the collar a tug up, as my B cups do not require much material to conceal them and enter the address of my and Samson's apartment.

When we get to our building, I direct Phillip to the guest parking. "Thanks. I'll take it from here." I unbuckle the seatbelt.

"How much are you packing?" Philip unbuckles his.

"As much as fits into my car."

The leather seat squeaks as he turns to me. "There are companies that can come pack stuff for you and move it to your new place."

"That's part of the problem. I have no place yet." Nor savings to pay the first and last, plus utilities. And definitely nothing to cover the movers. I can ask Kate to lend me some money, but she's not flush with cash at the moment or ever in her life.

"So what's the plan?" Phillip's question slices at me.

"There isn't one. Everything I planned for is gone: marriage, kids, even a place to live."

"Nata without a plan." He tilts his head and makes a long humming sound. "The earth must be turning backward."

I squint at him. "My life is."

"You're rerouting." Phillip's eyes lose focus, like he is ransacking his memory. "That's what Dad called it when my ex-wife Linda and I filed for a divorce. Rerouting."

"Rerouting." I let the word roll around in my brain. "Sounds less scary."

"There's nothing to be scared of," he says with a pointed raise of his eyebrows. "I can come up with you, if that'll help. We can load this car as well. You can stay at my dad's house. We have about six guest bedrooms for you to choose from."

"I'm not staying with you."

Phillip's eye light up with an idea I'm certain I'm not going to like. "We have some condos for the scientist who come for collaboration or exchange programs. I'm sure there's a vacant one you could take for as long as you need to figure your situation out."

"That sounds expensive. Executive housing is not in my budget."

"You can cover it later. You've helped me a lot in college."

"You paid me for the help." I avoid looking at Phillip and trail the progress of one of our neighbors out of the front door and to the driver's seat of his car, glancing at me and the man I am sharing this car with.

"I would've failed chemistry and biology without you," says Phillip.

"You...yeah. You totally would've."

"Let me do this. We have vacant lodgings. You need a place. Why not?"

A twitch in my back reminds me of what sleeping on Kate's couch option means. "We'll sign a contract. I will still pay. This is not charity."

"Fine." Phillip starts texting. "I'll have my assistant figure out a place and have someone meet us there with the keys while we pack."

We navigate the flight of stairs to the second floor, and I unlock the door to the only place I've lives since moving back to Chicago with Samson. Two days might as well have been two years. I know every corner, every piece of furniture in this place, but what was cozy and mine feels like a set for a theater play, not my home.

I open the hall closed and Phillip pulls two biggest suitcases off the top shelf.

He and I stand in the middle of the neat and lived-in living room, like vultures over a dead body. The last moment of stillness before we tear it apart.

"How can I help?" He unzips the biggest suitcase.

"That's mine." I point to the light brown desk. "Can you empty it and pack everything from the two shelves above it that fits?"

"On it."

I run my hand over my side of the closet. Jeans, leg gins, Ts, hoodies. Nothing sparks joy, but I throw half of the clothes in, add undergarments, socks, and take my running shoes and outfits, ballet flats, and flip-flops. I'm sure I'm forgetting tings I'll need, but this will get me through. In the bathroom, I empty my side of the counter into a plastic grocery bag. The contents of my drawers go into another grocery bag.

The kitchen is easy. I wrap my two favorite mugs. The only other item I have to take is on top of the cabinet. The rare times I use it, Samson would get it for me. "Phillip?"

His head appears in the kitchen doorway. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Can you take that vase?" I point to the thick crystal cube.

"You sure? You can get another one at a flower shop. They're cheap."

I don't even remember the last time I had cut flowers. This is not about displaying bouquets. This is the only connection to my past I allow myself to keep. "Please."

He doesn't even need to stand of tiptoes. I take the vase out of his hands, wrap it in several layers of bags, and nestle the heavy thing in between my clothes in the suitcase."

"I'm done with the desk and the shelves. What else?"

I make a slow three-sixty turn and check the couch, the TV, the dining room table, the bookshelves. There are photos, chachkas, art on the walls, and I don't know what to take and what to leave. "I think we're done."

Maybe when I cool down, I'll remember other things, but the more I think about it, the less I know what is even mine.

I sink onto the floor and watch the mess of bags and suitcases. If I do this, if I do this for real, I will not live here anymore. I've never been attached to places: I've lived in so many. This apartment has been my home for the last four years, but I've never painted a wall or decorated. The only personality in this place is Samson's. Everything I see around me has his fingerprints on it, that I won't be able to erase no matter how much I clean them.

Phillip sits next to me, typing on his phone. "I think I have a place for you. I'll text you the address, or you can follow me."

"Yeah." I should ask where, what place, but I don't care. It's not here, and that's better. A place for me to be alone and to untangle the emotions from my rational core that's drowning in them.

Phillip and I take two trips to load my stuff into my and his cars. The suitcases go into the back of his SUV, while my trunk is full of black garbage and plastic grocery bags, a laundry basket with more clothes, and what looked like not even a drop in the ocean of the things that I collected over the years fill not only the trunk but the backseats of both cars.

I stuff my feet into the slip-ons and add the heels to the top of the last pile we're taking downstairs. The apartment doesn't look much emptier at first glance. But the small blank spaces I left throughout are like missing teeth in a perfect grin of the last ten years with Samson.

"Ready?" Phillip lifts the final garbage bag I put my supplements and the protein powder I use for my post-run shakes. I open the fridge and take out the yet unpacked food delivery box.

"Ready."