We order Chinese and eat it on the couch, our feet up on the coffee table. We play Jenga, and he wins. Twice. We have sex on his kitchen counter, on his couch, and in the shower. We talk about the best horror flicks ever made, and we’re in complete agreement that Get Out, despite being fairly new, is the creepiest we’ve ever seen. Then we watch it together, just to make sure we don’t want to change our minds. We don’t.

When we go to bed, I wrinkle my nose and ask, “How many women have you . . . ahm, entertained in your bedroom?”

He looks upward, pretending to start counting them with his fingers. One . . . two . . . three . . .

“About thirty-five,” he deadpans. “Some were entertained more than others, but almost all tried to buy a ticket for the next show.”

“Manwhore.” I gag.

“I prefer sexually liberated individual.” He yanks me to him, planting a kiss on my lips. “Don’t pout. Sex is a great distraction. It’s a bulletproof way to forget about your worries.”

“What are you so worried about?” I play with the elastic of his sweatpants. He’s not wearing a shirt. We both kind of gave up on the idea of clothes in his apartment. They serve no purpose, seeing as we have sex on an hourly basis.

“You,” he says, clapping his hand over mine and stopping me from lowering his sweatpants. “This whole thing tastes like goodbye, and I don’t like it.”

I lick my lips. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m still looking at colleges in Boston.”

“What’s stopping you from moving back here?”

“What’s stopping you from moving to San Francisco?” I counter.

“Nothing,” he says matter-of-factly, surprising me. “San Francisco has docks, so I’ll have a day job. It has publishing houses. It has you. But no one’s invited me. That’s my holdup.”

This is my in. My chance to tell him that I want him by my side. But the fear is paralyzing. I’m scared of what our cursed relationship might result in. What if he dies too? I won’t be able to survive. I won’t. And now that Mom is dead, and Dom is dead, I just don’t want to lose him. I’m irrationally scared something’ll happen to Joe. Maybe because I know he is my only shot at happiness, I can’t afford anything happening to him. Ever. Even if—illogically—giving him up means I’ll never be happy.

And perhaps it is the happiness itself that scares me. The idea that I could laugh again, regularly, every day. That I would smile. That I would forget the dark past I’ve left behind.