There’s a lot of discussion online about the uncanny valley, dolls, how characters are drawn in video games. Things that look too much like real people: that awful gap between the real and the almost real. Vampire Boyfriends and Werewolf Boyfriends and Ghost Boyfriends, supposedly, don’t fall in the uncanny valley. People have an average of forty-three facial muscles. Boyfriends have the equivalent of fifty. They’re supposed to be more realistic than real people. Or something. Their heads are slightly bigger; their eyes are bigger, too. To make you feel good things when you look at them. Like how you’re supposed to feel when you see a baby.

Immy has joined two separate listservs for people with Boyfriends. She imagines what it will be like, posting to the listservs about the cute things Mint says, the fun things they do.

It’s the best week of Immy’s life. She hangs out with Elin and Sky. Ainslie texts them to tell them all the horrible things her mother is doing. And Immy spends as much time as she can in the storage space with her Boyfriend. Her boyfriend.

The storage space is dark and awful, but Mint doesn’t seem to care. Well, he was living in a coffin in a closet before this. He doesn’t have much to compare it to. He tells her about the things that other renters have in their lockers. A lot of pianos, apparently. And textbooks. Mint is perfectly happy to list everything he’s discovered. And Immy is perfectly happy to sit and listen to him go on and on about empty aquariums and old dentist chairs and boxes of Beanie Babies.

When she and Justin were hanging out he kept talking about video games he liked. She’d played some of them, too, is pretty good at some kinds of games, but it wasn’t like they were having a conversation. Justin didn’t leave any room for her to say anything.

Immy manages to find that song from the yogurt place and downloads it onto her phone. She plays it for Mint and they slow dance in the extremely small space not taken up by all of Ainslie’s mother’s crap.

“I really like this song,” she says.

“It’s a good song,” Mint says. “You’re a good dancer. I’ve been wanting to dance with you for so long.”

His hand is on the small of Immy’s back. He’s a good dancer, too, maybe even better than Oliver, and she leans her head against his shoulder.

“Which hair was yours?” she says.

Mint says, “I’m yours. Only yours.”

“No,” Immy says. “The ring. Which hair was yours? The blond hair or the black hair?”

“The blond hair,” Mint says. “The black.”