The overhead bulb swung back and forth, casting monstrous shadows. Suddenly cold, I opened his closet, grabbed his warmest shirt, and slipped it on. I scouted out the bottle of tequila we’d tapped the night before, took a big gulp, and sat on the bed, rocking and humming the theme song to a forgotten television show from my childhood. A few flights up, a man and woman argued loudly, their baby chiming in with its own high-pitched misery.

Half an hour crawled by. Plenty of time to listen to the scratchings of whatever lived in his wall, plenty of time to imagine terrible things, plenty of time to finally get that I was crazy about this guy, to have no concept of how I could go on without him in my life. To feel gutted like a gourd by the prospect of being without him.

He had to be at the shop. I bolted down the rickety stairs. Head down, shoulders drawn tight, face flushed with an old shame—a chronic fear of being deceived—I jogged down the crowded streets, parting the waves of Friday night revelers, the tourists, the hustlers. Had he decided to leave me, just like that? Just get to Omar, I told myself. Then everything will be all right.

I turned the corner to the motorcycle shop. Even from a block away, I could see it was dark and shuttered, the wide garage doorway closed and chain-locked, all the display bikes rolled in for the night. Still, I banged at the window, resting my hot forehead on the cold metal of the door, searching for the calm core of myself that did not exist.

I lifted my head. A light in the back of the shop, dim, flickering. I beat at the glass, pausing only to rub a spot clean with the palm of my hand. The sound of boots on concrete. Tumblers turned in the lock, a metal finality. The heavy door creaked open. Pride long gone, I threw myself at Omar. He wrapped his arms around me, dipped his head in my hair and breathed me in.

“Where were you?” I cried.

He held me for another moment, then took me by the shoulders and pulled me away. I glanced behind him. The shadow of a person sat at a table in the back of the room. “I’m sorry, Lily. There was an emergency, and you don’t have a phone, so I couldn’t—”

“You could have come and gotten me, why didn’t you—”

“I went to the restaurant. You’d already left. Then the Versailles.”

“I went to your place, Omar. Where else would I—”

“Calm down.” He drew me to him, obviously unnerved and surprised by how upset I was. “Try to calm yourself.”

I shuddered into him a few extra seconds before he took my hand with a firm grip. I followed him past rows of bikes leaning low into their stands like dozing animals, to a shadowy alcove in the back of the store.