The boys get up and head toward the door. Beau and I make the briefest eye contact as he passes my table, and my chest feels floaty. I feel invisible strings attach on to me and on to him and pull me toward him, phantom forces so powerful I nearly follow him out of the restaurant. But I practice self-control and wait five minutes after he leaves. Then I put four dollars on the table and walk home.

My black dress is starting to smell. I’ve been walking six miles daily for the past week or so. I don’t have laundry machinesin my building. This is one of the reasons I stopped exercising. Sweating just means more trips to the coin laundry, among the more depressing places in the world. For a while I could afford the wash and fold, but those days are long gone.

I put on Precious Starlets and listen to them talk about their recent trips to Europe—Camilla, to her family’s house in the French Riviera; Hazel, to Berlin with her DJ boyfriend—in monotone voices. They both complain that Europe is “tired” and “over,” and I envy them for having the luxury to have such opinions.

At the laundromat, I keep refreshing Beau’s Instagram page to see where he’s gone. Nada. Instead, I get a text from Thomas. Seeing his name on my screen makes me want to throw the phone against one of the metal machines, or maybe bang my head against one. But I am bored and lonely, stuck in a laundromat with nothing to occupy myself, so I open the text.

J?

That is all it says. Unfortunately I do want a J. Since I haven’t been working from my apartment, I’ve been smoking less weed and having more vivid dreams. I dream mostly of Beau. I dream of his face, of him holding me. I dream of us at the top of the Eiffel Tower, eating foie gras with Winona Ryder.

Meet me at Wash on Western, I write back. Then: I don’t have much time.

Thomas arrives as I am moving my clothes to the dryer. Perfect timing, really, even though he is still a miserable cuck.

The inside of his Volvo smells like expensive weed. Thomas always buys top-shelf shit from fancy dispensaries, and I still buy shake from a drug dealer.

“How are you?” Thomas asks when I hop in.

This question is impossible for a Scorpio to answer. Our feelings are too layered and intense to reduce to social niceties. “Where’s the J?” I ask instead.

“I like how you get to business,” he says. “No bullshit.”

“I’m an internet astrologer,” I say. “My whole life is bullshit.”

“Oh,” he says. “You’re still doing that?”

I ignore him and light the joint, take a big inhale. Music plays again, and this time it is even worse than the last. Guitars and twee voices.