“It’s fine,” I said and reached to wipe my tears, thought better of it. “Just look at me.” He hesitated a moment. Then, he stood, turned. Our eyes met. His, feathered around the edges by crow’s feet, every wrinkle distinguished and therefore sexual. Whereas mine—already beginning to show, thanks to Aesthetica™—will always be evidence of obsolesce, unwantedness. This according to a story that felt further away the longer Henry looked at me, the longer I looked back, each second stripping layers—substances, skin—until we were down to our own naked souls.

“Honey,” he said finally. “I’m sorry.”

I GET OUT of Henry’s bed, find my sandals, wiggle in my feet. And that’s when I see the knife. It’s positioned blade-in next to a fan of twenty-dollar bills on the coffee table, a note. Breakfast on me, Lone Star, it says. Let’s talk later. There’s a phone number, a signature, no xoxo or heart. You wish, I think and consider the conversation we might have: the knife that fell from my hand and why it was there in the first place; my mental health, irrational tears and outsized female rage. I consider the violence I thought would satisfy me, the gaze I got instead, less male than human, weathered and soulful and real. How, in the moment, I felt cured by it. Though now, in the light of day, I know that’s too tidy to stick. There’s no procedure, no pill, no person. Salvation is incremental, a smattering of small braveries.

I take the money—a hundred bucks exactly—and head for the door. I’m almost there when I turn around, go back for the note. Fuck it, maybe I’ll call.

BESIDES THE BAR, the Princess Hotel has this one restaurant, separated from the pool by a hedgerow, trimmed in the shape of hoop skirts and hourglass waists. From the other side, a girl screams and I startle, then settle. A cannonball splash ruptures the water. I leave my phone faceup on the table, open a menu, close it when the waiter arrives.

He’s got a face like a hangover, slack and purple. Which maybe accounts for why mine—covered by knockoff LV sunglasses, slathered in antibacterial ointment and shrouded in gauze and my sweatshirt’s hood—doesn’t faze him. I look weird, but not for LA, where cosmetic recovery is a status symbol as much as the work itself. Almost as much as beauty itself.

“Anyone joining you?” the waiter asks and I tell him no, put my hands in my lap while he removes the extra place settings. I watch the knife glint in his hand. It disappears into the pocket of his apron.

“I know what I want,” I say, and he says, “shoot.”

“Steak, eggs over easy, yes potatoes, yes toast, whole wheat, yes butter.”