And then there was Dino, with his grade-A ketamine. Our two-year romance. The kicked-off shoes. The roses in the wallpaper, sliding down the wall. K-hole conversations with angels and demons and post office workers. Daylight creeping under blackout curtains. Trapdoors opened in the carpet (whoosh). Kate Bush on the stereo, Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, anything swoopy and round with girls’ screams. How time felt like a pack of cards, shuffled in that Vegas way. The hours swooped and gooped around us like fallen ice-cream cones. We kissed and became millionaires. I rearranged my teeth to speak: You are my Lotto ticket. A stick of incense burns forever, stuck into an orange.

I flip through them when I’m lonely or sad, these snapshots of our love affair. It felt famous and rare. Yes, it fell apart. Our relationship petered out like a song from a car driving by—there’s a term for that, I think, the eerie warpage of sound as it swells and dies. The Doppler Effect, like the title of a noir novel. The ending was far less eventful. Nothing major or tragic; I just bowed out. I guess you could say I got spooked, by the demands of his love, by the encroaching finale. The electric days had come and gone, that period of grace and squalor. His body didn’t cease to amaze me, those long, easeful limbs, but it stopped seeming real after a while. I came to feel like I was watching a movie of him. As with any movie, my attention strayed. When he touched me, I felt far away. What’s up? he asked, eyes dark with fear. Cheesy phrases occurred to me: I wanna be free; I’m afraid of your love. They were too embarrassing to say aloud; instead I shook my head and shrugged, the cruelest act of all.