People often email me to tell me how much they love my readings, to say they feel “seen,” to say I’m creative and insightful and made them “LOL.” But I’ve been slacking recently. I use fewer words, and I copy and paste entire portions from other readings or astrology websites. I used to make them all original, but then I got tired.

But with Beau, I had my old creativity back. Like, times a billion. I felt like I was writing a screenplay that would surely win the Prix du Scénario at Cannes. Lydia kept trying to paw me for attention—cats always want what they can’t have— and I kept swatting her away. The words flowed out of me so quickly I hardly had to think at all. And they looked eloquent and beautiful on the page.

I open Beau’s response, excited for his reaction, expecting him to be wowed and awed. To my dismay, it’s just a few words.

What’s your Venmo?

I am crushed. He didn’t even acknowledge my artistry. He didn’t acknowledge how special I thought he was.

Maybe he’s busy.

I try to admire his economy of words, but I am still disappointed.

I spend the next few days in a depressive haze, listening to Precious Starlets episodes I’ve heard a billion times and not leaving my bed, not even going to Mirror Box.

Then one morning, the universe gives me a gift: Beau geotags one of his posts. Finally, I know where he is. If I left the house more, I might be able to recognize his locations. But I haven’t been to a restaurant or bar other than Mirror Box in, like, a year. Maybe two. Besides, Beau mostly posts on street corners and in houses, places I don’t recognize.

But on November 16—precisely nineteen days after I started monitoring his Instagram obsessively and, not coincidentally, I don’t think, my birthday—he geotags a post at a bar called the Big Sleep. The photo depicts him and “the boys,” all blurry on a crowded dance floor. I look up the Big Sleep and click through every single one of the 134 photos tagged on Yelp, mostly looking for photos of Beau, but also trying to feel like I am there with him.