"It's a good thing I didn't see your place before you saw mine," I say quietly, "or I never would've been brave enough to let you come over."

Adam opens a cabinet beneath the sink and pulls out a bag of cat food. "Why are you whispering?"

Oh. "I don't...sorry." I eye the bag of food. "You have a cat?"

"My mom has a cat." He crosses the kitchen to a door leading into the backyard. Everything is gorgeously and meticulously landscaped, with a fenced-in area for the pool, which is as immaculate as the house and sparkles as the setting sun catches on the water. Adam crouches and fills a bowl just outside the door. It, too, looks out of place. As does the scruffy black-and-gray cat that comes darting out of the bushes and shoves its face into Adam's hand.

"From what you've told me"—which isn't much, granted—"your mom doesn't strike me as a cat person."

"She's not." He smiles ruefully, stroking the cat's head and beneath its chin. "Her friend's cat had a litter. Mom thought Crispy was the cutest thing ever and brought him home. I don't know what she was thinking. Guess she didn't realize having a kitten would mean taking it to the vet, feeding it, and cleaning up after it."

"So you do it."

"Someone has to. I keep him outside so she forgets about him, otherwise she'd give him away. But he stays in the back yard and doesn't wander off." He straightens up and steps back inside as Crispy the cat begins devouring his food. "She got bored with her own kid. Not sure why she thought a cat would be different."

I would feel better if Adam sounded sad about that, or even angry. He doesn't. He sounds completely and utterly resigned—because this? This is normal. This is how his life has always been and he's used to it. I hate that. He shouldn't be used to being overlooked and ignored.

"Come on," he says. We go upstairs and to his room at the far end of the hall. It looks nothing like what I expect it to. No posters on the wall, no CDs or records scattered all over the place. Even this space that should belong solely to Adam is clean and model-perfect like the rest of the house. The only thing out of place is a framed, signed photograph of the Beatles hanging to the side of his door. Inconspicuous. Like he's hoping no one notices it's there.

"Holy shit. Is that real?"

"Got it on eBay, so who knows? I think so." He rummages around in his closet for clean clothes. Scruffy hair aside, Adam is always so tidy. He never leaves a mess behind, always does his own dishes, and I've never seen him wear the same outfit. Suddenly I'm self-conscious about the pants I've been wearing for three days straight.

I reach out to touch the frame of the Beatles picture, decide against it, and marvel at it instead. It has to date back to the early sixties, judging by the haircuts. Help! era, maybe. Seeing it reminds me of how Adam first approached me with Beatles' lyrics and I turn around, scanning the room, until I spot his computer on his desk (imagining him sitting there by nothing but his tiny desk lamp light, writing to me) and, beside it, his guitar.