“Okay, two hours before, you call him. You talk to him. You get horny from talking about…What do thirty-six-year-olds talk about? The fall of the Berlin Wall? Goldman Sachs? Then you go over to the Tinder guy’s place, and bam.”

“Bam, indeed.”

The plan is absolute genius. And if it ends up not working out, because I call Conor right when we said I would, because we end up fighting about the best way to restructure academic publishing, because he makes me laugh with a story from his rowing days, because I forget to check the time until approximately forty minutes after I was supposed to meet Tinder guy, because I absolutely do not want to have sex with someone who isn’t this man…

Well. That’s my fault.

Two years, one month earlier

Austin, Texas

“I always regret it, afterward,” I tell him the night of my fight with Jade.

He takes a deep breath. “I know.”

“I really didn’t want to. I just…I get so angry, and it’s like I stop thinking clearly, and my brain zeroes in on the meanest thing I can say. And the worst part is, my therapist has given me all these breathing techniques, all these ways to de-escalate, but sometimes I get so mad that my brain short-circuits and I legitimately forget to use them?” I rub my eyes. “I have to be a bad person, right? Good people don’t lash out like I do.”

“If you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, Maya.” He’s in Canada, but he feels so close. “I think it’s normal, wanting to hurt someone who hurt you. You’re working on it, and Jade knows you. You said you already made up, right?”

“Right.” I hug my knees to my chest. “What if I do it to you, one day? Will you hate me?”

Soft laughter. “I don’t think that’s possible, Trouble.”

Two years earlier

Austin, Texas

He calls me drunk. Not sloppy, but…almost. I try to make conversation—How was your day? Everything okay at work? What did you drink?—but I don’t think he wants to talk.

“You okay?” I ask, cautious.

“Yeah.” A deep inhale. “Yeah. I just wanted to listen to you exist.”

Hearing it nearly breaks me. “Okay,” I say, and we don’t talk after that. I finish what I was doing before he called: pack my bags for my upcoming week-long camping trip with Jade, fold some laundry, brush my teeth, wash my face. Carry my phone with me wherever I go.

“Maya?” he says, over an hour later.

“Yeah.”

A sigh. His breath, then mine. He’s about to say something, or I am.

“Have a safe trip.”

One year, eleven months earlier

Austin, Texas

“I don’t fully get it, stargazing.”

I huff, outraged. “Do you not love constant reminders of your insignificance?”

His “I’m good, thanks,” makes me bust into laughter.

“Okay, but…have you seen Antares?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Okay, go look outside now. Southwest. Low in the sky.”

Shuffling feet. A balcony door, opening. Conor, existing. “What am I looking for?”