Quick, fast, like removing a Band-aid. That’s how I usually deliver bad news, but not this time. This time, in the few steps it took me to reach her door, I must’ve thought of three different ways to break the news to her, and none of them were satisfactory because no matter how I said it or what I said, she’s going to be hurt at the end of it.

I stood outside the bedroom door with my hand raised to knock, and I heard it, her laughter. It went through me like a summer breeze, the ...