I liked watching her get weird in the candlelight.

We dug out the stones and sat on the cool ground with our hands touching them. I closed my eyes. There was my mom, making me puppy chow in a big plastic bag, her hair stuffed into a baseball cap. And my dad, sitting me up on his broad desk and showing me the cracks of oolitic limestone through a magnifying glass. And they stretched, stretched across time, so that they were not stuck in these moments, and we were not stuck in the present moment, missing them.

I was singing to Alice in the kitchen when Aiden walked in, wearing a pastel T-shirt and cutoff jean shorts. While he often looked hot and pensive in his photos, I’d never seen him look this relaxed, like he’d lived inside a Korean spa for a week or two, eating nothing but kimchi and going into the hottest bath, where they cook eggs.

“I have to tell you something.”

His face was shifty. His aqua shorts were tight along the outside of his packer, and his mesh running shoes were so hip they were unbranded. He pretended to examine one of the herb bundles overhead.

I raised my eyebrows.

“I happened to look up Rachel on the Gram after you told me you two were breaking up.”

I didn’t say anything.

The words commitment, your kink phase, partnership, cuddling, never thought I would, financial precarity, stability, and ultimately marry her came floating by me.

Part of me wanted to tell him, Our fam is not ending like this. Let’s go to the beach and process this like good queer folks and sort it out, and the other part wanted him to fuck off.

“Fuck off,” I said.

“I know, I know, I mean, I am, actually. I’m leaving for L.A. tomorrow with Rachel and she’s going to start shooting for that show Blithe was working on before he conked out.”

“Conked out? You know what? Nothing makes more sense than you fake-marrying a fake-ass celebrity. It’s the most consistent thing you could possibly do. Now your whole life can be one giant fake tableau where you get to cut out anything inconvenient or repulsive.”

His mouth opened as if he were about to say something real. Instead, he shut it, took a deep breath, put his hand through his expertly faded hair, and said, “You know, spending time with you and Blithe made me realize that there’s this whole world outside of the internet.”

“Well, praise the Dionyesian deities!”

I was so angry at losing R and Aiden, I couldn’t even curse correctly in the Witch’s style.