My East Palo Alto apartment was “cozy and quaint”—officially, since my super had said it twenty times during the initial tour. It wasn’t much (nine hundred square feet and overrun by some pretty scrappy ants), but it had become home, both because it was mine and because of my roommate, Jason, who was a fellow artist and operative. (We’d met through friends of a friend of a friend; then I’d recruited him to Rent for Your ’Rents.) Talking art with him and boosting each other’s creative energies was as wonderful as game nights with him and his boyfriend, Marshall. I was the Splendor champ; Jason, Takenoko; and Marshall, Ticket to Ride.

Living with another operative was a blessing and a G-D curse. Having a buddy to commiserate with was priceless and kept me stable, but he also noticed everything. Like yesterday, when I’d walked in the door fresh off the Wang job, Jason had immediately sensed I was off and wouldn’t let it go until I feigned diarrhea. (“Mom’s cooking, you know how it is,” I had said, and he’d nodded.) I’d spent the bathroom time trying to pull myself together, chanting not your prerogative waaay too many times. He’d let it go, but this morning, in the kitchen, as I heated water for green tea in a half-awake stupor, he side-eyed me once or twice and asked how my bowels were doing. I rubbed my lower abdomen and made a couple of faces. And I definitely did not tell him that I was this tired because I had lain awake last night thinking about whatever-her-name-was.

Why her? Why was I so captivated by her type-A tendencies (an opposites-attract thing?), her perceptiveness (I mean, it was annoying when Jason saw through me), her part-selfless yet fierce personality (wasn’t that completely contradictory?). Maybe because all of that, together, added up to the most intelligent, driven, passionate, caring, yet strong person I’d ever met. It also didn’t hurt that she made me laugh (mooncake points to her!). The monologues I had given her parents weren’t just from training, but also because I felt like I knew her and truly believed she deserved all I mentioned and more.

My defenses dropped when Jason left me alone to start his morning routine. Even though we didn’t have to (and in a perfect world I’d stay up all night painting), Jason and I tried to keep a “normal” schedule so the transitions during jobs were easier.

I was setting the oven timer for a three-minute steep when my Rent for Your ’Rents app dinged. Well, more accurately, it went ba-boop-boop, alerting me with its unique notification of a potential job.

“Yours or mine?” Jason called out from the bathroom, where he was washing his face with the door open. His phone was charging in the kitchen beside me.

“Mine!”