August passed into September, and Joy felt as though she were moving through a fog. Even in the hustle and bustle of Chicago, she couldn’t seem to find her center. She saw Adam everywhere: in the bright green trees near Lake Michigan; in the laugh of a man down the street; in the bottles of wine she looked at in the grocery store. She couldn’t escape him, no matter how much she wanted to.
Two weeks after Labor Day was when she got up the courage to call the person she needed to talk to most: her former best friend, Regina.
She and Regina had met when Joy had moved to Chicago as a young college graduate, and they’d been inseparable. Joy, Regina and then Jeremy had become a trio, going everywhere together. Joy had never thought her friend held the slightest interest in her boyfriend-turned
