Pam had barely slipped into her sister’s apartment when her bag was forcibly removed from her hands and a beer pushed into it. “Sit,” Penny directed, and Pam flopped down on the couch that used to be in their parents’ basement. It was cracked but comfortable, and carried with it the memories of cozy afternoons spent sharing hot cocoa and playing Connect Four on the rickety folding table set up in front of it—a table so unsturdy that it had made Connect Four almost like Jenga, in that you could also lose by overturning the table and making everyone’s little checkers fall out. Pam felt her eyes fill with tears, not because she didn’t love the memories but because nothing in her own house brought those kinds of memories with it. Roy had insisted on buying new stuff or using his old bachelor pad stuff, and so all their parents’ hand-me-downs had gone to Penny—or the dump.

“So…” Penny wasn’t a patient person, and she was practically vibrating as she stood in front of Pam, her own beer’s label falling victim to nervous picking. Pam realized she’d been sitting on the couch a little longer than she’d thought—the beer had been new a few eyeblinks ago.

“So,” she started, but Penny interrupted.

“It’s not like I don’t want you here, or you’re not welcome all the time, but please tell me you’re leaving Roy this time.” Penny seemed to realize what she’d said and shoved the bottle into her mouth.

Pam stared at her. Leaving Roy? That wasn’t what she was doing, was it? OK, she was sitting on her sister’s couch, that bag by the door was definitely hers, with all of her stuff in it (well, not all her clothes, but all the ones she liked, and the art supplies, and her toiletries…), and she’d called Penny in a panic from an Arby’s parking lot after realizing her sister might not be home.

She could see why Penny might think she was leaving Roy, if it came to that.

But she wasn’t leaving Roy, right? What would that even entail? They were engaged, for god’s sake, not just roommates or boyfriend and girlfriend, but engaged, getting married, together forever. She couldn’t be leaving Roy because…because she couldn’t be leaving Roy, that’s why.

“No…” She’d meant for that to be more forceful, more of a “No!” but it came out halfway between what she’d meant and a question. She pushed out a shaky laugh. “I’m just…I just needed some space.” She just needed a bed that didn’t have a drunken Roy Anderson in it, and a morning wakeup that didn’t involve continuing an argument with a hungover Roy about how apparently he could hang out with Jim and she couldn’t even exchange two words with him. She was so tired. So tired, in fact, that she didn’t really see any real reason not to just tell Penny all of this. She was aware as she did so that she wouldn’t usually open up this way, even to her sister. Maybe it was the couch. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the beer, which had somehow become empty. But she sat there on Penny’s couch and let it all out.

Afterwards, her sister was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, then abruptly stood up and walked into the kitchen. Pam followed her only with her eyes, then slid them closed and rested her head on the plush but crinkled back of the couch. When she opened them again Penny was gently removing the bottle from her hands and sliding in a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

“I don’t think you really need my feedback,” Penny began, as she leaned back and started in on her own, matching bowl of ice cream, the only difference being (as it had always been, ever since they could remember) that hers was decorated with a small splash of caramel sauce while Pam’s boasted an equal quantity of chocolate. “But for what it’s worth, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need.” If there was any extra emphasis on the last five words, Pam couldn’t be sure she wasn’t making it up. “And Pam?” Penny made sure Pam was making eye contact before she went on. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them sat there side by side and ate their ice cream, then by mutual assent began a new conversation about something else—first their Dad’s new hobby of baking artisanal bread, then a restaurant that Penny had been to recently, and by the time that Penny got up to find Pam sheets that could go on the couch things felt a little better. But Penny’s words wouldn’t quite leave Pam’s head, and even in the morning it felt like an earworm of a song she couldn’t get out of her head.

“Please tell me you’re leaving Roy.”

“I’m sorry.”

What the hell was she doing? She really didn’t know.