People were echoing the question all around us, but I couldn’t make out their murmured answers. The question itself had taken on the quality of an incantation vibrating through the room, and I suspected it was supposed to lead us to transcendence, but I wasn’t feeling it.

Nathan settled into his seat and asked me again. We had four and a half minutes to go.

“Sex,” I said. It was mostly a lie now. I wanted to see a reaction, but again I got none. Why did I want to get a rise out of him? I wasn’t prone to acting out anymore.

“How do you avoid pain?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you avoid pain, Evelyn?”

I didn’t feel pain anymore.

“I avoid people,” I said.

“How do you avoid pain?”

“I avoid relationships. Relationships are for other people,” I said, smiling.

It didn’t feel true, but I wanted it to be.

“How do you avoid pain?”

“I shut down.”

I was shutting down. The question was floating all around me and I was starting to feel light-headed—as if I was on the verge of an anxiety attack. My face felt hot, and I wondered if he could tell that I was melting down or if I was hiding my spiral well enough to go unnoticed. He stared at me. Had I broken something in him? I hoped so.

“Evelyn, how do you avoid pain?”

I searched the walls for a clock but found none. Five minutes felt like an eternity when you were in an endless loop of defending yourself. I looked around and saw people crying. They were transcending their own humanity or something, having breakthroughs. But I had given Nathan a bum deal. He would not break me.

“I don’t feel pain.”

“What?”

“All I feel is pain.”

“Time!” Bethanny shouted as a headache began to sprout behind my eyes.

Nathan said, “Great answers. Loved them. So good.”

He could not stop smiling at me and patted my knee, and even reached to squeeze my hand. I did not stop him. The palm of his hand felt rough against my skin, and I imagined what he did with his hands to make them feel so rough. As he looked at me, proud that we had shared a moment, I could feel that I had sweated through the back of my shirt. I looked at the people comforting their partners and could tell everyone around me had reached a new level of understanding. But I didn’t feel closer to Nathan. I gave him a weak smile back, feeling like a fraud who couldn’t transcend anything.

“Switch,” Bethanny called out.

I stared at Nathan and I could tell he was excited for this.

“How do you avoid pain, Nathan?”

“I run,” he said.

“How do you avoid pain?”