For the last several New Year’s Eves, I had occupied a stool at the bar, inconspicuously peeking at Cal, finding him more enchanting than any of the flashy fashions or spirited songs surrounding me. Though we now had a more intimate relationship, I took a seat in my safety zone, greeted Abe and sipped my whiskey. I watched Cal more brazenly than I had over the previous years, drawing glances and smiles from him that felt indulgent.

We were playing a game, one perhaps we had played back then also, before I knew, before I understood him in a real way, before I believed he could understand me in a real way too. I felt his energy even when it wasn’t expelled toward me, as if the connection we shared was tangible, fibers of our hopes twisted like ropes, tethering us together. In those moments, when I felt his presence so profoundly, everything else fell away, leaving us bound by a shared life force, mangled by our trials, but resilient nonetheless. I’d been attached before, blood from my mother rushing into me, until it didn’t. I didn’t want to be cut from him like I had been her. I needed to know I wouldn’t be, that we could be more than that fleeting moment and the moment that followed, and then the one after that.

I studied Abraham as he poured patrons’ drinks, wondering how I suddenly saw him so differently. How somehow he’d become my nemesis—though he didn’t know I’d grown to despise him—if only because he filled the frame when I wanted to gaze solely at Cal, always in the background, looming, reminding me merely with his presence that he was with Cal too. He touched him where I did, kissed his lips, held his hand.

I drained my glass and, like a moth to the flame, Abraham was there, ready with the refill. I wished I’d sipped slower in an attempt to avoid his service. There was a lot for me to lose and Abe held much of it. Cal had been convinced Abraham didn’t concern himself with what we did, but I found it impossible to comprehend. How could anyone be alright with sharing Cal? How could I be? I didn’t think I was, but I didn’t think I had a choice. It was better to have a piece of him than none. I wondered if he viewed me in the way I saw him. If I was the silhouette at the end of his tunnel as he was for me. And what if one day I was his only love and I had nothing more to hope for because he’d fulfilled it all, would I wait for the inevitable crash that mirrored the surprise of 1929? Would it be the start of my depression?