Lily and the new patient enter the TV room, and I feel my skin blanch. She’s cut from the cloth of my nightmares: petite, with wide hazel eyes, caramel-colored hair, bangs cut low across her forehead. Her arms and legs are delicate, milky stems protruding from the silken edges of a blue polka-dotted dress. She wears no makeup, no jewelry, no polish on her nails. My career writing ad copy to exploit women’s physical insecurities has rendered me expert in the minutiae of female beauty. In this sense, I am like a judge of pedigree dogs or horses. When I say that this woman is flawless, I do not mean it lightly. She possesses no attribute that I would, in good faith, suggest augmenting or reducing, highlighting or minimizing, smoothing or shaping or lengthening or rejuvenating or otherwise subjecting to any of the verbs I employed daily to describe the infinite ways in which a woman might fail to achieve her corporeal potential. I would not know how to sell her a thing.

In an exam room, I complete my surrender. Bradley presses his body to mine. He kisses the nape of my neck. His fingers press my pelvis and thighs, molding my supple bones into the shape of his desire. I taste his skin, wishing I could unhinge my jaw and swallow him whole. As we lie entwined, my back to his, I cry silently, because I know I will never actually have him. The other times I’ve been in love, there was hope of a future. With Bradley, I harbor no such illusions. I have given up on the dream of a life together beyond the ward. What I feared from the beginning was confirmed the day Olivia arrived—that given a world of women to choose from, he will never, ever choose me.

Perhaps it is possible, though, to revise my idea of love. To remain in the present; to love Bradley now even though I know he will only hurt me, in the end. But it doesn’t really matter either way. I am too weak not to claim every moment with him that is offered.