[...] all of these things at once, made me say, as she was putting her shoes on, all your radical politics and he’s the person you go home to?

She shrugs. The heart wants what it wants.

It does, sure, but it’s our responsibility to think about what we want and why we want it, we can’t just close our eyes to our desires.

Yes, we can, she says, and I think you should try it sometime, she says, bristling. Why do you have to explain everything to yourself? Or demand that other people do the same thing? Why can’t something just be?

The compulsion to repeat, I begin, it has a hold on us that we can try to break—

Oh fuck off with your Freud, Anna, seriously, she says. I’m not your fucking student. Just fuck off for once.

She starts to leave, and turns back, and puts her arms around me.

Maybe I like the way it holds me, she says.