And he traces her inner thigh with his lips, eliciting a moan from her as he teases her entrance.
He slides a finger in, pressing deep inside her. She bucks her hips up to meet his knuckle, he growls with feigned arousal. He resurfaces, attacking her mouth, owning her. She surrenders to his tongue, if only to allow nostalgia passage. She rubs herself against him, a mewling kitten in heat, crying harder. She fakes an ****** to satisfy him.

He presses his **** against her and she realises how little she affects him. Determined, he forces himself past her barrier, grunting and growling. He assaults her mouth again and she reacts accordingly, trailing her nails down his back in a futile attempt to rekindle. She is unsure of how this came to be. She fights back tears as she threads her fingers through his hair. She knows she is still and always will be second best. He grows soft.  A tacit agreement. Neither of them finish.

She rolls over to face the television. An old british comedy is on loop, making the same stale jokes that may have been funny a decade ago. And here she is, on repeat, making the same mistakes she made a decade ago.

When he finally asks what’s wrong, tell him that he’s really just too good for you and you're afraid that one day he’ll wake up and realize that he could sleep with so many better women.
When he leaves the apartment and gets in the back of a taxi cab at two in the morning, don't follow him.
Maybe even though you saw him with another woman, laughing and joking in a smoky bar with their heads held close together, you still think you have a shot with him.
You don’t.

Dress yourself up if for no other reason than making yourself feel good. Put on your tightest, tiniest little black dress and some high heels and have a dance party in your own room with the stereo blasting.
Throw away his photos. Delete his texts, crumple up his notes and slot them into the paper shredder like old credit cards.
Thinking about him is dangerous; do not lie in bed in a quivering heap for days at a time. Do not mope or hit the snooze button simply so you can drift off to sleep and dream about him.
Jump in the shower and wash him out of your hair. Scrub your skin raw until you cannot smell him anymore. Wash your sheets. As you take them out of the dryer, practice saying your first and last name with adding his on.

Wreck your journal. This is the required “fresh start” your best friend told you about on New Years. She is tough and practical. Consider being more like her. Decide against it because having an affair with your husbands best friend is not practical.
Let your thoughts flow into questions that you pose to the world. Tell yourself that this is not an unfortunate habit.
Remind yourself that today in the modern world, if you’re single, that doesn't mean you’re missing “your other half.”  There isn't someone else out there running around with two arms and two legs and one head who used to be attached to one side of your body and will eventually find you again, on the street or in a deli or even at an indie rock concert in the back row; there’s just you. An imperfectly perfect human being who likes coffee or maybe hates it and has said awful, regrettable things to somebody else and is still trying to figure out how this whole life thing works.

When you are on the couch of your living room, do not reach out to squeeze the faces in the smoke you blow; do not think of his face. Reach out and draw the lines in your mothers face. She would have wanted you to.