It didn’t matter for my purposes, though. Because all I needed out of the wall was the absolute reminder that 50 percent of all American marriages ended in divorce, and the rest of them were on their way there.

I would stop loving Cole. That was just the fact of it. This wall was proof that one day, I would stop caring.

I closed my eyes. Not all the way. If I sealed the lids, it would break the surface tension, and then these tears would escape.

“Isabel, you should come with,” Sofia told my back.

My eyes flew open, wide as they would go. I didn’t turn around.

“With? With who?”

“Dad and me,” she said. “We’re going —”

“No, I’m busy.” I could feel her still standing right there, so I added, “Thanks for asking.”

She didn’t move. I didn’t have to turn to know that she was working her courage up to say something. I wanted to tell her to spit it out, but I didn’t have any energy left over to be mean.

“You’re not busy,” Sofia said bravely. “I’ve been watching.

Something’s wrong. You don’t — you don’t have to talk about it, but I think you should come with us.”

I couldn’t believe that I’d been so bad at hiding my feelings.

I couldn’t believe, either, that I had somehow lost enough of my prickly exterior to make Sofia think it was acceptable to call me on it.

“Say yes,” Sofia said. “I won’t pester you.”

“You are pestering me!” I spun. She didn’t look chastened, though her hands were folded in front of her.

“It’s really nice outside,” she added. “I’m bringing my erhu.

We’re going to go sit on the beach.”

She unfolded her hands, and then she took one of mine. Her fingers were very soft and warm, like she had no bones. What the hell. It couldn’t make me feel worse, surely. When Sofia gave a gentle tug, I didn’t resist. At least until I got to the door.

“Wait, my boots.” I also meant my hair. And face. And clothing.

And heart. So many things really needed to be put in order before I left the house.

“We’re going to the beach,” Sofia said. She let go of my hand and swiped up a pair of my mother’s flipflops from the pile of shoes by the wall. She dumped them into my grip and went to get her erhu.

Unbelievably, I ended up driving her to the beach in flipflops and gym pants and a tank top, with my hair like a homeless person’s. I parked at the edge of the lot, where a bunch of sweatily buff boys played volleyball. My uncle (ex-uncle?) Paolo was already there, still in his EMT uniform, which reminded me horribly of the cops in the bass-player episode of Cole’s show.

He ruffled Sofia’s hair like a kid’s (she smiled blissfully) and draped his arm over Sofia’s shoulder. “I was going to bring cupcakes.

But then I thought, no, Sofia is going to make something that’ll make whatever you bring look like crap! So I brought booze instead!”

He didn’t mean actual booze, of course, just local root beer, the outsides of the bottles moist with condensation. Sofia was delighted, as she had, of course, made bakery-perfect cupcakes.

I was impressed with Paolo’s knowledge of his daughter.

They were so keenly cheerful in each other’s presence that I felt like a third wheel as I helped carry things out to an empty spot on the beach. Sofia spread a blanket and her father pulled out a pile of do-it-yourself magazines that he’d collected for her.

I really wanted to see calculation in it, some sense that he’d done all of this to make up for abandoning her with Lauren, but I couldn’t. Because he was clearly just an overworked and overtired EMT who was genuinely happy to steal the time to see his daughter, who he knew really well.

There was only one person who knew me that well.

It would be better after he left town. When I didn’t know exactly where he was. I needed to get rid of Virtual Cole. I’d drop it off tonight. I knew he was going to the studio to finish the album. I’d leave it on his car.

I couldn’t let myself think about it too hard.

Sofia and her father chattered back and forth, both of them talking wildly with their hands, and then Sofia took out her erhu and played. You could hear it up and down the beach, but no one cared. This was L.A. They’d heard everything.

I lay back on my elbows, eyes closed to the sky, my scalp tickling because my hair kept brushing the sand behind me.

My bare feet were off the blanket into the sand, and I dug my toes in.

In my head, Cole kept dropping his head onto my shoulder in the cemetery. He kept becoming a wolf. He kept building everything up and burning it down.

Just think of going to class, Isabel. I told myself. Getting a degree. Becoming a doctor. This is life.

I wondered how long it would be before my father came to visit and take me to the beach before returning to his San Diego life.

Sofia stopped playing.

My uncle asked me, “Do you want to talk about it?”

This was because I was crying. I sat up and pulled up my knees and drew them closer and closer until I was crying into them.

Life sucked.

Sofia put her hand on my back, which normally I wouldn’t have ever tolerated, but I was just too done to protest.

“It’ll get easier,” Paolo said.

But I knew that. That was the worst part. The worst part was that eventually you forgot about the people you loved. The dead ones and the ones who raised you and the ones you wanted to be with at the end of the day.

I had learned before my CNA class that the body produced three kinds of tears, each with a unique chemical makeup. One of them was generated regularly to keep your eyes moist. The second sprang to life when the eye got something in it, like debris, lubricating and washing out the intruder. The third happened when sadness built up inside you. The chemicals produced through depression were carried out of the body through these tears. You were crying your sadness out.

So I knew there was a scientific reason why I felt better after I cried.

But knowing that didn’t take away the fact that I did feel a little better.

Finally, I lifted my head just enough to rest my cheek on my knees. I asked my uncle, “Do you still love Aunt Lauren?”

I waited for Sofia’s hand to tense on my back, but it didn’t.

Paolo made a rueful face. “I like her. She’s a nice woman.”