“I’m off gluten, corn and cheese,” she said. “I used to be able to eat whatever, but now I’m on an elimination diet.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“There’s something wrong with me, like inside.” She waved her fork. “I have all these crazy symptoms, and the doctor says it’s nothing, and I know it’s not, so I’m thinking it’s maybe dietary, I don’t know, we’ll see.”

“Sorry,” I said. My phone was facedown on the table and I flipped it over, checked the time, my notifications, looking for @Naurene48, both relieved and irritated when she wasn’t there. If I had to hear about anyone’s mysterious ailments, I’d rather it be my mom’s. Endless and familiar, they’d given structure to my life. Not that my life in Los Angeles was unstructured. It was adventurous, on the way to lucrative. Which was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it?

Jake paid the bill and I went home with him. He opened his laptop, double clicked a video of two girls orbiting a man like ecstatic satellites. We fucked to the sound of their pleasure, my voice in competition. After, we lay on our backs on the bed, Jake’s arm a nook and me inside.

“Would you help me with something?” I asked.

He said, “Of course, baby.”

“Now that I’m not at my job, I don’t have health insurance, and I’m just out of birth control, and I know condoms suck.” Truth was, I had always been jobless and my mom had dropped me from her shitty Library policy, trying to set an ultimatum and make me stay home, go to college, veer from the path I’d chosen.

“I was wondering what you think I should do.”

He kissed my head. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. In the morning he made a call and set up an appointment for me to get an IUD and STD check. “Wait, what exactly is an IUD again?” I asked and he said, “Don’t worry, it’s easy, you’ll see.” He texted Ella to drive me. We sat in the waiting room of a pink clinic in Westwood and scrolled our phones until a nurse said my name and I stood.

“Good luck,” Ella said. “It’ll make everything easier.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I’m good,” she said, eyes still on her screen. “I don’t need to see that.”

“See what?” I started, but the nurse was already leading me away.

It was only my second time in the stirrups. I didn’t know what to expect and took a selfie on my back to distract myself. I was editing it for my story when the doctor came in and caught me. “You’ll have to put that away, hon,” she said. I hit post and tucked my phone under my butt.