Chapter 1

On Thanksgiving, my boyfriend Ethan finally agreed to come home with me and meet my parents.

He saw my phone. Forty-nine percent. He turned the car around.

“I told you your phone needs to be above 50% before you leave the house. If you can’t even manage something that simple, what’s the point of meeting your parents?”

Then his phone buzzed. Vanessa.

“My phone’s almost dead. I’m at the airport alone, and I’m scared.”

He headed straight for the airport to pick her up.

I demanded an explanation. “Her phone is dying, so you rush to pick her up. Mine’s at 49%, and suddenly meeting my parents doesn’t matter?”

Ethan’s jaw tightened.

“She’s alone at the airport. What if her phone dies and she can’t reach anyone? Can you stop being so selfish?”

Vanessa waited by the curb in a cream coat, phone in hand, not a hair out of place. She stepped into his arms as if she’d rehearsed it, then handed him her phone.

Ninety-eight percent.

He saw it. I watched him see it. Then he smiled and kissed her forehead.

“Don’t scare me like that next time.”

I looked at the 49% on my own screen and wondered if it was time to end this relationship too.

…

By the time I took a cab home, my parents had already reheated dinner twice.

“Mom, stop waiting. He’s not coming.”

I had barely sat down when the doorbell rang.

Ethan Parker stood at the door. Vanessa Reed was right behind him.

Vanessa held several boxes of cookies. She stopped short when she saw me, then blushed and apologized.

“Claire, I’m sorry. I was starving on the way over.”

“I didn’t know your parents had made these holiday treats especially for Ethan. I opened the boxes and ate a few.”

I looked down.

The boxes had been opened, and half the cookies in the top layer were gone.

Ethan frowned, took the boxes from her, and set them aside.

“They’re just a few boxes of cookies. It’s not a big deal.”

“What happened today was my fault. Don’t take it out on Vanessa.”

I looked up at him, finding the whole thing absurd.

“Today was supposed to be the first time you met my parents.”

“That’s different.”

Ethan looked at me. He was already annoyed.

“Your phone had plenty of charge. You could still reach your family. She thought she was about to lose contact with everyone.”

He said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

There it was.

There was no rule. There had never been one.

He just didn’t care.

Vanessa burst into tears.

“This is all my fault. How about I treat everyone to lunch tomorrow? I’ll make it up to Claire.”

She sounded so apologetic.

Anything I said now would make me look petty.

The next afternoon, she really did book a restaurant.

The waiter set down the seafood platter. I counted the shrimp before I realized I’d stopped breathing.

The platter was piled high with shrimp and crab.

I set down my fork.

“I’m allergic.”

Ethan was mixing butter sauce for Vanessa. He barely glanced up.

“So eat around it.”

“Ethan. It’s on the same plate.”

He barely looked up.

“God, Claire. Just a bite. You make everything a thing.”

Halfway through the meal, Ethan pulled a sheet of paper from his bag and laid it on the table.

I recognized the numbers before I understood what I was looking at.

It was a log of my phone battery levels.

It listed when I left the house, how much battery I had left, and whether I’d charged my phone beforehand—every last detail.

A few friends at the table leaned over to look and immediately burst out laughing.

“Ethan, wow. You really keep track of everything.”

“Claire definitely deserves a punishment today.”

Vanessa smiled at me too.

“Claire, Ethan is really strict with you.”

“But I guess he’s only looking out for you.”

Someone else chimed in.

“Then Claire should have to peel a whole plate of crab for Vanessa.”

I gripped my fork tighter and said,

“I’m not doing it.”

Ethan lifted his eyes, his expression cooling.

“It’s just one meal. Do you really have to make such a big deal out of it?”

Everyone around the table was looking at me.

They were waiting for me to give in and play along.

In the end, I put on a pair of gloves and dragged the plate of crab in front of me.

The shell split under the cracker and bit into my thumb.

Blood came up fast, dark against the white tablecloth.

I folded a napkin over the cut and kept working.

Across the table, Ethan had his attention on Vanessa.

He was putting potatoes on her plate, asking if she wanted more butter.

Hot butter splashed across the table.

Vanessa yelped.

Ethan shot to his feet, grabbed her hand, and rushed her toward the sink.

“Where did it burn you? Let me see.”

I looked down and replaced the bloodied napkin. The blood from my fingertip had already stained the crab meat red.

Only then did one of the friends beside me hand me a Band-Aid.

I thanked them and put it on myself.

After lunch, Vanessa waved her phone.

“Ethan, can you drive me home? My battery’s almost dead, and I’m worried I won’t be able to call a ride.”

Ethan nodded, then turned to me.

“You can get home on your own. You live nearby.”

I looked at him.

“My phone is almost dead too.”

He didn’t hesitate.

“You’re always so good at planning, aren’t you? Figure it out yourself.”

Then he opened the passenger door for Vanessa.

The passenger door clicked shut.

The rules had never been rules. They’d been a leash.

On my way home, I had just turned off our couples’ location-sharing app

when the battery died and the screen went black.

I stood by the side of the road and borrowed a stranger’s phone to call my mother.

The moment she answered, I could tell something was wrong with her voice.

“Mom, what happened?”

There was silence on the other end for several seconds before she finally said,

“Your dad’s in the hospital.”