Meg decided the only way out was through. She asked Roger to summarize one of the books he’d been reading, and tuned out during his rigorous synopsis. She wanted to ask him what his deal was—what was wrong with him—but didn’t know how to phrase it in a way that wasn’t hurtful. It was possible, she now realized, that he had suffered some trauma that kept him frozen in a childlike state, preventing him from developing social skills. This thought softened her view of him, and she felt guilty for having judged him previously simply because he was so attractive. She observed Roger as he summarized the Murakami novel, filing away data points that she could later convey to Genevieve.

“Sure, sure,” Genevieve said. “I mean, no judgment.” She said this without apparent irony; Genevieve was the most judgmental person Meg had ever known. Without her usual eyeliner, Genevieve looked like a child, her round face puffy, lips swollen from sleep. She was not conventionally beautiful, but Genevieve harbored a self-assuredness that drew people to her, broken people who longed to be told how to live, and with whom Genevieve amused herself temporarily before gently breaking their hearts. She possessed the unyielding self-esteem of a person with rich parents who loved her unconditionally, who called her every Sunday evening, hoping she’d soon tire of her West Coast experiment and move back to Connecticut. Genevieve would have been capable of using Roger for sex, laughing in his face when he told her he loved her, but Meg had known too much of life to treat people so casually.

Roger saw the wisdom in Steve’s thinking. He stopped texting Meg. He reflected on the details of their first encounter, in case he should get another chance to achieve sex with her. She had responded most positively when he did not speak, when he simply focused on inserting parts of his body into her orifices. She had recoiled when he told her he loved her, and Roger resolved to never do this again, though it was the truest thing he had ever known. Roger asked Steve if he would be willing to practice kissing. Steve agreed, and they spent Thursday afternoon engaged in this practice, first with Steve pretending he was Meg, then with Roger pretending he was Marisa, and then with Roger pretending he was Meg and Steve was Roger, until by the end Roger felt ready to approach kissing Meg from any perspective, including his own.

This piqued Meg’s interest. She wondered how Roger had access to this cabin, but she had learned that asking him practical questions about his life only yielded unsatisfying, cryptic responses. It occurred to her that Roger was embedded in a network of tech-industry privilege that she might enjoy the perks of. Matt had been similarly privileged, but abstained from indulging due to his political convictions. He’d been a hacker as a teenager in rural Oregon, a vegan anarchist who justified his current job coding for a major tech company as a means of stockpiling cash to fund hazily defined revolutionary activities. In the meantime, he and Meg had eaten bland quinoa every night. She’d fallen asleep to the faint sound of Rage Against the Machine issuing from Matt’s headphones while he stayed up until 3:00 a.m., Slacking with his comrades. She had longed, in those days, for a partner who would engage with her in expensive, ecologically irresponsible activities.