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.

When I woke up the next morning, I found that Aiden had slunk out, leaving his bedding in a pile on the deflated air mattress. Blithe was still asleep on the couch, under my gravity blanket and the old sleeping bag. I went to boil water and heard a knock on the door. I opened it, but no one was there. An envelope was at my feet. Another one had been left across the hall, where two sets of straight early-twenties couples lived, so it couldn’t have been from the Rhiz. In the kitchen that Aiden had rubbed down with the Witch’s neem and tea tree oil, I read that we were being evicted so the building could be sold.

The premises must be vacated in the next 45 days for the purposes of luxury reoccupation.

The letter’s wording made it seem as if there were no human subjects involved, just the value of the building and the relative lack of value of the inhabitants.

Blithe stirred. I told him what had happened, with Aiden and with the building.

“We can go back to L.A. and you can stay with me,” he said.

I wasn’t quite ready for him to be well enough to take care of me, but I nodded and slumped down on the couch.

After all my complaining, the other coast was the only option. This city’s romance had dimmed. My romance with my own misery had dimmed.

As I packed, Blithe spent hours talking to his parents about his job situation. He decided that he needed to quit Elemental. He said he could try to get me an interview