I finally bought my dream house and invited my family to come see it. No one showed up. Later that night, my dad texted, “We need to talk about the house.” By then, something inside me had already shifted.

I was nearly done when the knock came at almost midnight. A soft uncertain knock, nothing like the arrival I had imagined all evening. Through the peephole I saw Amber, Kevin’s girlfriend, in sweatpants, holding a square cardboard box from a grocery store bakery. I opened the door.

She gave me a weak smile that barely rose high enough to count and pushed the box into my hands before I had invited her in. Through the plastic window in the lid I could see a sheet cake with bright blue frosting and little white sugar stars. The price tag was still attached to the side. Nineteen ninety-nine, curling at one corner.

“I know it’s late,” she said. “I just thought… I don’t know. Somebody should bring something.”

I looked at the cake. Then at her. Then stepped aside and let her in because whatever else was happening, it was cold outside and midnight is a poor hour to perform total theatrical rigidity.

She walked into the entryway and looked around the way I had seen people look at things when what they were actually doing was calculating. Her eyes moved over the living room and settled into an expression I recognized from long familiarity as envy dressed in neutral clothing.

“It’s big,” she said.