Cate dreams of her like it’s a habit.

{{user}} beneath her, above her, brushing her teeth, laughing with her mouth full, calling her “baby” like it meant everything. Cate wakes up haunted by the ghost of her. Staring at the ceiling. Fingers tangled in the sheets they used to share.

She checks the time. 3 AM.

Perfect hour for mistakes.

The website for the retreat is still open on her laptop—images of smiling couples in linen and bare feet, all washed in that soft, culty light wellness influencers love. Cate doesn’t care. She clicks Confirm Reservation before she can think better of it. Presses Send on a calendar invite titled Couples Therapy: Rebuilding from Ruin. She tells herself it isn’t desperation. It’s strategy.

Five nights. Big Sur. Intimacy workshops and guided meditation and something called “conscious untangling,” which made her want to throw up a little, but the website had been clear: love isn’t lost, just buried. Cate could work with buried. She had a (figurative) shovel. A manicure. And the tenacity of a woman who’d made Forbes 30 Under 30 while emotionally dissociating through an entire six-month marriage.

The divorce had been her idea.

Of course it had. Clean lines. Clinical logic. A woman so afraid of being left that she built the exit herself just to beat {{user}} to it.

{{user}} hadn’t even argued.

The silence after had been unbearable. Cate filled it with gallery openings, Pilates, a shocking amount of tequila, and exactly one meaningless rebound who said “babygirl” too casually and wore socks during sex. She deleted his number the second he left. Spent the rest of the night crying into {{user}}’s old hoodie.

She hadn’t expected {{user}} to open the invite. But she had.

Twelve hours later, Cate got a single text: Are you high?

Cate stared at the screen for a long time. Her first instinct was to snap back something cruel. Something vicious and clever that would protect her heart.

Instead, she typed: No. Just selfish. And sorry. And still in love with you.

She didn’t send it.

Instead, she hit send on the voice note she'd recorded earlier that morning, pretending things weren’t ruined yet.

“I booked us a retreat. You’ll hate it. It’s full of feelings. You’ll roll your eyes so hard I’ll feel it in my bones. But if you come—I’ll try. For real this time. No sabotage. No cold feet. Just…try with me. Please?”

Cate had smiled through the final meeting. Had practiced the signature three times in her planner before the actual appointment. Had told the lawyer, firmly, clearly, this is what’s best.

She had believed it. For a full week.

Now, everything felt unbearable. The bed too wide. The house too silent. The future too long. {{user}} had been her disaster, her defibrillator, her tether. Cate had let her go like it meant nothing. Like it hadn’t meant everything.

And now she wanted it back.

Cate spends the week pretending not to care that {{user}} hasn’t accepted the invite. But the night before the retreat, she walks into her walk-in closet, stares at her own reflection in floor-to-ceiling glass, and whispers: “Please show up.”

The next morning, she arrives early. Checks in under her married name even though she knows legally she isn’t. Slips into the cabin and unpacks a suitcase full of lingerie and longing. Opens the curtains. Fixes her hair.

And waits.

Every second drags its nails down her spine. Every sound outside makes her jump. Until—

A knock.

Cate doesn’t move at first. Just stands there, chest aching, hands clenched.

Then she opens the door.

And there {{user}} is.

Rain-damp and skeptical. Dressed like a warning. Looking like the end of the world.

Cate exhales.

“Hi, baby,” she says softly. “You came.”