This fear, hanging over her, grows, like an anxiety that feeds itself. She can’t live with it. Nameless, this core fear: threat of loss, fog of grief, painthat goes on and on. A balance, frozen, that’s worked for her so far—too dangerous to thaw, too unstable to readjust.
Because this she knows.
Something beautiful can turn ugly.
Something whole will break.
When she finally falls asleep, it is with the memory of arms around her, warm and strong in this bed.
And the things she thought she could rise above, she cannot.
Morning in the loft is cold. Empty.
She drops her keys on the kitchen counter. Packs her belongings, tucking them into the overnight bag she’d left in his closet. Hooking the tote over her shoulder, she setsCancer Wardback on his study shelves. Hands shaking, she texts the group chat:(11:23 a.m.) hey!!! remind me, what are the plans for tonight?!
On the train, as messages from her friends start rolling back in—phone buzzing, plans, places, night ahead—she deletes the photo saved in her camera roll: the Polaroid of the two of them.
She goes out to meet her friends. Saturday night, packed bars spilling out into the streets, shrieks of joy from groups seeing familiar faces. Inside, bumping into bodies, vaguely glazed eyes, people making new friends in long bathroom lines. The press of it is near suffocating, close to what she needs.
She heads towards the bar, trying to find her friends in the thick crowd. Her phone buzzes as she gets a drink; they’re almost there, subway stopped in the tunnel between stations, they’re in line now upstairs, bouncer checking IDs,(10:59 p.m.) sorry, it’s taking ages—
“Hey, are you waiting for anyone?”
Oh, it could all be so fucking easy.
Her smile flashes as she looks over her shoulder at the stranger.
“No,” Lili says. Distant, it feels so distant: the weight of her smile, the tilt of her head.
“Could I get you another drink, then?”
“Yeah, thanks,” she replies.
“I’m Justin,” he says, offering his hand with a smile.
His grin is crooked, endearing—chipped incisor, messy black hair.Kind eyes, reflecting back the dark bar. He’s only a few years older than her: twenty-eight, copywriter at a digital agency. He makes a joke about fueling capitalism by advertising products via sans serif fonts to millennials. Her laugh is well-timed. When she mentions she’s in grad school, he looks both impressed and interested. He asks if she’s enjoying it, if she wants to teach.
And he has black hair, taller than her, dark eyes, and he says something half-funny about the aestheticization of socialism on TikTok, and she wonders if she should look for someone else, someone completely physically different—
Her heartbeat pounds in her throat, as she drains her gin and tonic. Clear, clean blanch of alcohol. Lili glances over the bar, crunch of the black straw between her teeth.
It’s easier this way.
She won’t—she refuses—to have one more thing she can lose.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Lili asks, interrupting him.
Eyebrows raised, he trails off—he’s taken aback, but then he smiles, slight disbelief. “Yeah, sure, I’d love that.”
It’s a walk-up on Mulberry. His roommate is out, and the living room doesn’t have windows. A bar cart in the corner has Tito’s and unopened Ghia, MacBooks plastered with stickers rest on the coffee table; a copy of Camus, Bourdain, a few Roth books, some Žižek that looks untouched. Fixed-gear bikes lean against the wall under a Hann Trier MoMA exhibit print, and New Balances and Common Projects clutter the entry.
“Do you want another drink, or water, or anything?” he asks, as the door falls shut behind them.
“No,” Lili says, pulling him towards her. “No, I’m fine—”
The heat of his mouth against hers—surprised, then eager—isn’t right. He doesn’t know how to kiss her. It’s not inexperienced but rather clumsy, how he grasps her waist, palming her breasts, like he doesn’t know what she likes, but she has no desire to show him.
“Which room’s yours?” she asks, breathless. His hair is too coarse under her fingers; his smooth face feels wrong. His smile against her mouth makes her stomach lurch.
