Sam and I spent a cozy Christmas Eve with my parents in Connecticut before driving to New Jersey to spend Christmas Day with his. My parents weren’t religious and cared more that we spent time with them than which day we chose. We took a midnight drive on Christmas Eve to Sam’s parents’ house and slept in Sam’s childhood bedroom, which still had his old wooden desk with etched pen carvings on its surface and high school textbooks between ceramic baseball bookends. I woke up on Christmas morning with a kink in my neck from his extra-firm twin-size mattress but couldn’t complain—he’d slept on the floor beside me rather than taking the couch in the living room.

I had insisted that Sam and I skip Christmas presents to one another that year, and we’d agreed to plan a vacation for the spring instead. I knew Sam was in no position to spend, and I had no time to shop for anything but children’s gifts online. We watched his niece and nephew tear into their presents while sipping our coffee, then sat down to an elaborate brunch his mother prepared, all while still in pajamas. I peeled myself off the couch after a family viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas and called a car to take me back to the city before they started Miracle on 34th Street. Sam’s parents handed me a large bag of Tupperware filled with leftovers, and offered sympathetic pouts for the fact that I had to work. I encouraged Sam to stay there, but he insisted on coming back to the city with me, and I appreciated the gesture more than I’d appreciated anything he’d done in a while. We were seemingly back on the track of a normal, happy couplehood.

On the first Monday morning after Christmas, the bright chill brought with it a sense of calm. It was now clear to me that my Christmas gift to myself and everyone I loved was a self-imposed moratorium on Peter and all the partying I’d been doing. I imagined that my behavior was an addiction of sorts, and that withdrawal symptoms would subside after a few days. The universe had stopped me from doing what I couldn’t quite seem to end myself. I headed into a sleepy office with a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in weeks and logged on to my computer.

From: Jordan Sellar

To: Alexandra Vogel

Cc: Matt Jaskel

Subject: We’re staffing you on a cool deal.

Matt and I are away through the 1st so can you man the emails? Came in through Didier he’s in town working so you’ll be fine.

From: Alexandra Vogel

To: Jordan Sellar

Cc: Matt Jaskel

Subject: Re: We’re staffing you on a cool deal.

Great! I got this. Enjoy vacation!

Within a day or two, though, something about the bustle of the city around me and being back in the office made me think about Peter constantly. I checked my phone incessantly to see if he’d emailed me, but his messages were always about work and work exclusively. I tried to occupy my brain by working from home with Sam, cooking dinner with Sam, seeing movies with Sam, and making love to Sam. Still, I was bored with Sam. On New Year’s Eve, we ordered in Chinese food and watched Trading Places. When we got into bed just after midnight, Sam turned to me and whispered, “This was my favorite New Year’s ever,” just before falling into a deep slumber, and I was struck by the terrifying thought that this would be every New Year’s Eve for the rest of my life. I got out of bed, brought my laptop into the living room, and stayed up till three doing all the busywork I had neglected since the Winter Ball.

Come the second day of January, Jordan emailed me that I was billing at the top of my class—fifty-five hours in the past week, and that was during the slowest time of the year. I could barely keep all my deals straight; I was on four active matters with slated closing dates within a month of one another. The office had buzzed back to life seemingly in an instant. Whatever sense of Zen my colleagues had found on their beach or mountain escapes instantly vaporized when they returned to the cold, wet New York winter. I still hadn’t heard anything from Peter that wasn’t about work. He’s only been back in the office one day, I reminded myself every time I refreshed my in-box.

I shuffled frantically through the binders and papers on my desk to find my ringing office phone, and grabbed the receiver just before the call went to voice mail.

“Hi!” I said, out of breath.

“Let’s do the call in my office. Matt is home for the night, but he’ll dial in,” Jordan said with no preamble. He and I had fallen back into our comfortable routine immediately, speaking at least ten times a day, and I kept taking care of his requests long before he ever thought to check in. I actually felt myself getting better and better at my job, having handled everything on various deals myself while my colleagues were on vacation.

“Yup,” I said and hung up.

I looked at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of my computer screen. It was just past ten. I touched my cell phone to bring it to life, and the screen filled with the calls and texts I had missed from my parents and Sam. I panicked momentarily that there was an emergency, but after glancing briefly over the emoticons and how-are-yous, I opted to open Spotify instead. But I couldn’t focus. My legs were shaking under my desk. I’d started to feel confined, almost suffocated, so I got up and made my way to the pantry, almost crashing into Nancy, who was exiting with a tea.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” she said, meeting my eyes sheepishly, clearly embarrassed about more than our near collision. “So, so sorry.” I noted her sheer pink blouse with white tank. Nancy was dressing much better these days, apparently taking a note from those around her.

“No worries.” I brushed past her, and I could feel her watching me as I grabbed a soda from the fridge. She said some terrible things. You should call her out, make her feel even worse. No. Be the bigger person. “Glad you didn’t spill on yourself. That top is too cute to ruin,” I called over my shoulder.

I returned to my office, opened my soda, and bopped my head to my playlist as I checked the clock and opened Below the Belt, the site Carmen had introduced me to, to catch up on the latest gossip in BigLaw. I perused the headlines: “Inebriated Davis & Gilroy Associate Topples Display at MOMA Gala,” “Record-High Bonuses Rumored This Christmas,” “Is BigLaw Going the Way of the Dodo?”

I looked back at my clock. Only three minutes had passed since I had last checked it. I turned my music off and tried to breathe to steady the thudding in my chest. My office felt suddenly tiny, as though the walls were slowly closing in on me, and I suddenly needed to get out. I dialed Derrick’s extension, hoping he was free for a walk around the block.

No answer.

I texted him.

Alex: You around? Need a break.

Derrick: Litigation settled today so hopped on a flight to Vegas. Back tomorrow.

Who goes to Vegas for a night? I yanked at the collar of my shirt. Was this claustrophobia?

Was that even possible, given the view of the entirety of downtown Manhattan outside my window?

There were still twenty-three minutes before our status call. Antsy, I walked into the hallway, where a couple of still-lit offices and the hum of a vacuum from somewhere behind me were the only evidence of life in the building. My eye caught on the reflective sign hanging from the ceiling of a stick figure taking a flight of stairs, and it gave me an idea. I went back to my office, kicked off my heels, and laced up the nearly unused gym shoes I kept under my desk. I returned to the stairwell, opened the door, and breathed in the musk of dusty, industrial concrete, then hiked up my skirt and started to climb slowly, savoring the tightening in my calves and feeling my thighs start to burn from the rare physical exertion.

And then I heard a soft whimper, and stopped short. I couldn’t hear anything but silence for a moment, yet I felt another presence in the stairwell, and then I registered another faint feminine whine. I silently continued upward, wondering if I should offer comfort to a colleague who was clearly having a tough time, or just retreat and leave her in peace.

Then I heard a grunt.