The next after­noon, I found myself at the Men’s Wear­house in Strouds­burg to return the tuxe­do I wore to a wed­ding. The same kid with pink hair and pierc­ings wel­comed me, ask­ing how every­thing went. I mum­bled a polite response, still grap­pling with my thoughts from the pre­vi­ous night. After dri­ving back from New Hamp­shire with Tam­my and Abi­gail, I felt exhaust­ed but couldn’t sleep, anx­ious­ly wait­ing for updates from Mag­gie regard­ing the shock­ing inci­dent that had unfold­ed. Even though she had reas­sured me, I could­n’t shake off the wor­ry. After a rest­less night, I checked my phone in the morn­ing, only to find no mes­sages.

In an attempt to dis­tract myself, I start­ed with some chores. I stripped the sheets from Maggie’s child­hood bed­room and tossed them in the wash­ing machine—she had said she was nev­er com­ing back, but I clung to the hope she might change her mind. After return­ing the tuxe­do, I filled a gro­cery cart at ShopRite with her favorite foods, all while fre­quent­ly check­ing my phone for any missed calls. It was late in the after­noon when I final­ly received a call. It was Vicky from Super­cuts, and my stom­ach dropped as I answered, know­ing this con­ver­sa­tion was unavoid­able.

Vicky expressed her con­do­lences about what hap­pened, hav­ing seen it all over the news and on social media. A wealthy tech tycoon’s son dying in a firearms acci­dent right before his wed­ding was bound to attract atten­tion. When she asked about Mag­gie, I hes­i­tat­ed, unsure how to respond. I didn’t want to lie, but I also couldn’t reveal the truth. I described Mag­gie as very con­fused. Vicky offered to meet up for din­ner to talk about every­thing, and, despite my desire for the emo­tion­al sup­port, I felt the need to main­tain my dis­tance. I point­ed out that she wasn’t a pro­fes­sion­al ther­a­pist, which stung her.

Despite her insis­tence that she wasn’t “just” a hair­cut­ter and her pre­vi­ous will­ing­ness to attend the wed­ding, I felt over­whelmed and abrupt­ly end­ed the call. I took down her busi­ness cards from my refrig­er­a­tor, ready to dis­card them to avoid falling back into the con­ver­sa­tion. I told myself I could wait a month before need­ing anoth­er hair­cut, let­ting the dis­tance build between us.