It would not be unreasonable to say that X and I, in that moment, did not yet know each other except by instinct. We hadn’t yet cohabitated, had endured no hardships, hadn’t traveled together, and had only discussed personal matters in the most cursory ways. Despite this, I felt X knew me better than anyone else, and the moment she called me ruthless I believed myself to be so. Prior to that moment, I may have identified as a rather meek person, a fearful person, someone who was terrified of pain, of difficulty and conflict. But here she was—this enormously powerful woman telling me that I possessed a rare strain of power. I accepted it completely. I immediately became a new creature, one who could accept—without worry or hesitation—that the most important person in her life would disappear for weeks at a time without explanation or assurance of her return.

At the same time, I still carried around those fearful past selves, and the ghost of Henry’s wife still paced in the back of my mind, as did my parents’ silent and nameless daughter, as well as the young woman who once desired the most conventional, stable life possible—a nice living room, a face no one would call ugly, a marriage, the approval of others. In that first year or so with X, I was sometimes haunted by their voices and the worries of those past selves, especially when X was gone.