Do you know the thing about frequencies, though? There’s no denying them. You can call it chance, you can call it prayer, you can call it an author getting lazy and taking a shortcut. You can call it what you want, but dream all your dreams because if you push hard enough, even the universe will move.

With Nitwit married, I knew I was next in line. A few options had already been hinted at, random glowing recommendations of good boys making their way into conversations they had no business entering.

I couldn’t say that the prospect didn’t hold a momentary temptation. It was so easy, so convenient. It held the promise of an antiseptic kind of happiness, and you would have to be blind to not see that the prevalent opinion was that, reasonably speaking, it was more than anyone can ask for.

But what do you do when easy is invalidated in the face of something you’ve carried with you since you were seventeen? What do you do with a feeling that lives its own grand, sovereign life? That sits there, irreverent and nonchalant, with an unshakeable hubris borne out of knowing that you are helpless before it, you cannot control it.

What do I do about you, Jay? What do I do when I can’t do anything at all?

I see on Facebook that he will be on one of those news channels, talking about some complicated fiscal-slump thing that I have no idea about.

It is the first time I have seen him in months.

He is wearing a deep-blue tie.

He’s fucking gorgeous.

I know he is nervous because the whole world has collapsed into the sum of the space he occupies, and his eyes are unsteady and he’s trying to cover it up by nodding and making an expression of acute concentration.

He does this thing where he tips his head slightly when asked a question, as if accepting it. It is an accurate representation. Jay is the ultimate askee. When you ask him something, he takes it from you with a careful and sure hand, like it is important, like he’s got it, no problem, no worries. Before answering, he thinks the query over, all of it. He looks at the sides and the underside, examines it up-close and from a critical distance. And because it’s him doing this, because it is his stratospheric intellect being applied, whatever you asked him is elevated. Your questions grow in depth and dimension and texture. Because it is Jay Dhillon answering them.

And like so many other things about him, it sends me reeling. It swells my heart up with admiration-tinted affection, makes me afraid that my own body cannot hold all of me. It leaves me wishing, again, that I could just spill some of it in his direction, maybe into his arms.

Instead, I start looking for work.