“We went back to her place.”

“Okay.” I stood up. “Okay then.” I sat down. I put my hands to my cheeks and then clasped them in my lap. “All right. All right then.”

He watched me, braced for whatever was coming. I crossed my arms and looked away. So, this was the cost of that free feeling each morning. Brutal. But there was enough hypocrisy built into life, one shouldn’t choose it.

“I think this is good,” I rasped.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We looked at each other in shock, like two people hovering in the air with nothing holding them up. No scaffolding, no strings, no wings—but not falling.