Reading glasses.
He looked at the screen.
“Oh.”
Freya glanced up.
“Do you still have yours?”
“The thread?”
“Yes.”
“Probably.”
“That is concerning.”
“Documentation.”
She smiled.
Then looked back.
“Can I delete these?”
Evan stared.
“Why are you asking me?”
“I don't know.”
“They’re yours.”
“No.”
She pointed.
“They were sent from my phone.”
“Not by you.”
“Exactly.”
He put down the laundry basket.
“Do you want them?”
“No.”
“Then delete.”
Freya hesitated.
He noticed.
“What?”
She looked toward him.
“For years this was proof.”
“Yes.”
“Proof you didn't leave.”
“Yes.”
“Proof Tessa did it.”
“Yes.”
“Proof I wasn't crazy.”
Evan’s expression softened.
“You were never crazy.”
“You thought I ended our relationship by text after seven months.”
“I thought you were angry.”
“That is generous.”
“You were often angry.”
“Rude.”
“Documented.”
She laughed.
Then became serious.
“What happens when the proof is gone?”
Evan looked at her.
“The event still happened.”
Freya nodded.
Simple.
She deleted the screenshots.
Then emptied the trash.
No dramatic feeling.
No release.
Just storage space.
That surprised her.
Perhaps evidence became less necessary once memory stopped being contested.
Tessa knew.
Evan knew.
Freya knew.
Nobody was trying to rewrite it.
The proof could rest.
Evan did not delete his archive.
Freya found that out three months later.
“Hypocrite.”
“Historical record.”
“You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
He eventually transferred the old backup to encrypted storage and forgot the password.
Freya considered that close enough.
At sixty, they attended another rooftop party.
Not professionally.
Leah’s retirement.
Same general part of Chicago.
Different building.
String lights.
City.
Music.
Freya wore black because apparently she had stopped evolving stylistically.
Evan wore a white shirt.
Brooke saw them from across the terrace and shouted:
“No.”
Freya laughed.
“What?”
“This is exactly how it happened.”
Maya, now gray-haired and still practical, looked over.
“You are right.”
Leah raised a champagne glass.
“Should we stand behind them and gossip?”
Brooke immediately moved into position.
Freya pointed.
“Do not.”
Too late.
The three women arranged themselves near the railing exactly as they had twenty-nine years earlier.
Brooke whispered loudly:
“Who is that man?”
Maya:
“I hear he ghosts women.”
Evan turned.
“I have receipts.”
Everyone laughed.
Freya cried.
Not because the joke was perfect.
Because time had turned something once unbearable into something the people involved could touch without cutting themselves.
Later that night she stood beside Evan alone.
The skyline looked different.
New towers.
Different lights.
Same river.
Freya said: