Chapter One

Research Log #1

Research Question: Can a woman voluntarily retire from dating?

Hypothesis: Yes.

Methodology: One catastrophic breakup. One cross-country work trip. Zero emotional availability.

Status: Ongoing.

I’ve always found it easier to understand other people than myself. Which is probably why I spent most of my twenties studying men instead of dating them. The problem was, they thought they were on dates. Dinner. Deeply personal questions. Notes I never wrote down but somehow remembered anyway. I left with material. They left with my number saved under a heart emoji.

I observed everything. The way they ordered before opening the menu. The stories they skipped. The details they repeated. I don’t know when curiosity turned into a personality trait, but somewhere along the way it did.

By the time I was thirty-four, I’d unintentionally broken a few hearts, apologized for all of them, survived one spectacular heartbreak of my own, and confidently announced) to anyone unfortunate enough to be listening (that I was done with men. Completely. No more convincing myself that someone who took twelve hours to reply was simply “a bad texter.” I was retiring. Indefinitely.

And yes, I’ve made this announcement before, but this time felt different. I’d deleted the note from my phone. “Mason — Ask about Iceland.” Neither of us had ever been to Iceland. I still don’t know why we wanted to go. I only remember staring at those four words while waiting to board my flight to New York.

Sophie was already in New York. We had this habit of turning work trips into vacations and vacations into work trips. It saved money and made us feel significantly more interesting than we actually were. I told her this trip would be work in the mornings and drinking our sorrows away at night. No questions were asked, she just said, “Finally, an itinerary.”

My thumb hovered over the screen for a full minute. Delete? I remember thinking that healing should probably feel more profound than tapping a little red button. It didn’t. It just disappeared. I put my phone back in my bag, boarded the plane, and quietly congratulated myself on finally getting my life together.

If this were a movie, that would’ve been the end of Act One. Instead… It was the first scene.

By the time I got to the hotel, my suitcase had acquired a personality. Specifically, the kind that refused to cooperate in public. One of its wheels had apparently retired halfway through JFK, so instead of rolling beside me, it dragged itself across the lobby with the enthusiasm of a toddler being taken somewhere against their will.

The hotel hadn’t changed. I noticed the smell before anything else. It’s strange what survives in your memory. The smell.

Mason and I had stayed here the year before. I couldn’t have told you what floor we were on, but I remembered him insisting we’d chosen the wrong hotel. He spent the first twenty minutes listing all the reasons we should’ve stayed somewhere else. 

The line at reception wasn’t moving. A man wheeled his suitcase into place beside mine. The woman behind us had noticed approximately fourteen seconds before I did. She was pretending not to look at him with the kind of commitment that only made it more obvious she was.

I looked up. Yep. Henry James. Working in film has a funny way of shrinking celebrities into coworkers. Eventually they all become people with better lighting.

Henry James looked exactly the way Henry James always looked. Slightly tired. Inconveniently handsome. Like someone who’d spent the last ten years apologizing for interrupting people’s dinners.

The receptionist finally waved me over. “Checking in for the Ashes writers’ room?” she asked. I nodded and handed her my ID. “They’ve booked quite the group this year.”

There was something in the way she said it that suggested I was supposed to know what she meant. I didn’t. I smiled anyway, because smiling is much easier than admitting you’ve missed a piece of information everyone else seems to have received.

She typed for a few seconds before looking back up. “Would you happen to have any rooms with a balcony?” She blinked. “We don’t have smoking rooms anymore.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t smoke.”

“Oh.”

“I just like balconies.”

She smiled. “Let me see what I can do.”

While she searched, I became vaguely aware that the man checking in beside me had stopped speaking. A few more clicks. “You’re in luck.” She printed a new key packet and slid it across the desk. “Thank you.” I picked it up and stepped aside.

“Actually,” the man beside me said. I glanced over. Henry James. “If you have another room with a balcony…” He shrugged. “I’d like one too.” His receptionist typed for a moment before nodding. “I think we have one left.” He smiled. “Perfect.”

For the first time, our eyes met. I smiled. Just a little. He smiled back with the faintest hint of apology, almost like he knew exactly what I was thinking. Then we both gave the universal nod strangers exchange when they’ve accidentally shared a very small moment.

“Welcome back, Ms. Parker,” my receptionist said. I looked at her. She glanced at the screen. “You stayed with us last year.”

“Oh.” There it was. Proof that computers remembered things even when you were actively trying not to.

She finished explaining breakfast hours, the gym, and something about complimentary coffee in the lobby. I nodded at appropriate intervals while Henry thanked his receptionist, collected his key, and headed toward the elevators.

I dragged my suitcase after me. It protested loudly enough that both receptionists looked up. “Wheel,” I explained. Neither of them had asked. The elevator doors closed just as I reached them. Naturally.

By the time I reached my room, I’d developed a personal grudge against the seventh floor. I pushed the door open, dragged my suitcase inside, and let it collapse beside the desk. It landed on its injured wheel with a dramatic thud.

The room was almost identical to the one Mason and I had stayed in the year before. Same beige carpet. Same aggressively average artwork. Same armchair nobody had ever willingly sat in.

Funny how a room could look exactly the same while your life had become almost unrecognizable.

My phone buzzed.

Sophie:
Open the door.

I frowned. I’d been upstairs for forty-three seconds.

When I opened it, Sophie was standing in the hallway holding a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

“I brought options.”

“You brought a liquor store.” I stepped aside. “Come in.”

She placed both bottles on the desk with surprising care. “I also brought chips.” She reached into her tote bag. “And chocolate.” Another reach. “And tissues.”

I looked at the tissues.

“So you came here expecting me to cry?”

“No.” She paused. “I came here prepared.”

I laughed. “That’s somehow worse.”

She shrugged out of her jacket and looked around the room.

“Same hotel?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “I hate that for you.”

“So do I.”

She wandered over to the window. “Still my favorite city.”

“You say that about every city.”

She looked down at the street below. “But New York believes me.”

I laughed. “You’ve been here six hours.”

“I’ve already made eye contact with three dogs, found a bookstore, and nearly got hit by a cyclist.”

“So… a successful trip.”

“Exactly.”

We ordered fries we absolutely didn’t need, ignored the television after spending five minutes trying to find something to watch, and argued over whether hotel robes were actually washed between guests or simply steamed into submission.

“They’re washed,” Sophie said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I choose peace.”

“I choose evidence.”

“You would’ve been unbearable as a detective.”

“I would’ve been phenomenal.”

“You would’ve interviewed the murderer for six hours and forgotten to arrest him.”

“I would’ve understood him.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

One drink became two. The room grew warmer. The conversation quieter.

Eventually Sophie leaned back against the headboard and looked at me over the rim of her glass. “So…”

There it was. The question she’d politely postponed since I’d landed.

“How bad was it?”

I stared into my drink. “I deleted the note.”

She exhaled slowly. “I honestly thought you’d keep that forever.”

“So did I.”

Silence settled between us. The kind that only exists after years of knowing someone well enough to let them think.

“I keep waiting for there to be one thing,” I said eventually. “One fight. Betrayal. One moment where I can say, ‘That’s when it ended.’”

I swallowed.

“There isn’t.”

I took a deep breath. “He just… slowly became someone who loved me less than I loved him.” The words hung in the room longer than I expected them to.

Outside, somewhere below us, a siren echoed through the city.

“I think that’s the cruelest version,” Sophie said quietly. “There’s nobody to hate.”

I looked at her. “That’s annoyingly insightful.”

“I stole it from a therapist on TikTok.”

I laughed. Sophie set her glass on the bedside table.

“Can I hug you?”

“No.”

She nodded.

“Okay.”

Then she hugged me anyway.

“Sophie. No. I’m serious.”

“I know.”

I tried leaning away. She only tightened her arms. I sighed.

“You are unbelievably stubborn.”

“So are you.”

I stopped trying to escape.

For a few seconds, neither of us said anything.

Then, somewhere between deciding to push her away and realizing I didn’t have the energy… I cried. Quietly at first. Then all at once.

She stayed there while I cried into the shoulder of her sweater. Eventually she reached behind her without letting go of me, grabbed the tissue box, and held it out.

“I knew you’d need these.”

I took one. “I hate that you’re always right.”

“I know.”

She topped up both our glasses.

“So…”

She handed mine back.

“Tell me about Iceland.”

“Iceland was supposed to be our honeymoon.” I stared into my glass. “I’ve wanted to go for as long as I can remember. Maybe since I first learned about deer. Maybe since Google came out.” I laughed softly.

“I don’t actually remember when the dream started. I just know it ended with me in Iceland… and somehow always included Mason.”

I looked at Sophie.

“And, apparently, some deer.”

By five in the morning, we’d successfully demolished half a bottle of whiskey, most of the vodka, two baskets of fries, an unreasonable amount of chocolate, and exactly none of my emotional problems.

Sophie was asleep. She snored with the confidence of someone who had never once wondered whether she was inconveniencing another human being.

I sat cross-legged on the carpet with a bottle of water in one hand and my phone charger in the other, trying to convince both my battery and my bloodstream to recover before morning.

Nine o’clock. That was the first writers’ room meeting. Four hours. Realistically, three and a half if I wanted to shower and resemble a functioning member of society.

I took another sip of water. The room smelled faintly of whiskey, hotel soap, and fries. A dangerous combination.

Outside, New York had become quieter without ever actually becoming quiet. Every now and then a siren drifted through the window, reminding me that somewhere, someone else was having a much worse night than I was.

I stood and walked over to the balcony. The air was colder than I expected. The city looked different at five in the morning. Less like a destination. More like a machine taking a breath before another day.

I’d always liked cities at inconvenient hours. They felt more honest. Nobody was trying to impress anyone at five in the morning. The people still awake had reasons. Shift workers. Insomniacs. Parents. Writers. People making terrible decisions. People recovering from them.

I wasn’t entirely sure which category I belonged to. Probably several. I leaned against the railing and looked down at the street below. Somewhere out there was an actor I’d smiled at for approximately half a second because we both wanted balconies.

Funny. I’d spent years studying people, and somehow the only thing I’d learned about Henry James was that he preferred fresh air. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much to build a character on.

I wondered what he’d observed about me. Probably nothing. Good. I wasn’t looking to become anyone else’s research project. A laugh escaped me. Quiet enough not to wake Sophie. Loud enough to surprise myself.

My head still hurt. My heart still hurt. But for the first time in weeks, neither of them felt unbearable.

I looked up. The sky was beginning to change enough to remind you that morning had already made up its mind. There was something strangely comforting about that.

The sun came up whether your relationship survived or not. Whether you’d cried on a hotel floor until two in the morning. Whether you’d deleted the note. Whether you’d ever make it to Iceland. Life, rather rudely, continued.

I took one last breath of cold air before stepping back inside. The balcony door clicked shut behind me. I set three alarms.

6:45.

6:50.

7:00.

Then I climbed into bed without bothering to change. Across the room, Sophie snored through all of it. I smiled into the darkness.

In four hours, I’d have to pretend I hadn’t cried myself to sleep.