I drink. In the mirror I see a woman who’s weary of fighting. For the first time I notice I’ve aged. Wrinkles, a faded complexion, a lack of luster in my eyes. I’m losing touch with myself in this tug-of-war between Henri and Wilder, between my old life and my present one.

After my answer Wilder kissed me, and his kiss had a bitter, shocked, bewildered taste.

The hair on his head is blond. On his chest it is dark, almost black, and between his legs it’s light brown. Naked, he looks completely different from Henri. He is completely different—always in the here and now, never in the past or the future. He bears no grudges. He has no trouble saying “I love you” or “As you wish. So is this the end?”

I nodded, noticing the moist gleam in his eyes as he brusquely turned to leave.

Another sip, or more like a swig this time. I’m no beauty. I resemble a goblin in the wrong light and a relatively pretty Irish boy in the right conditions. But Wilder loved this nonbeauty.

If I have even the slightest feelings for Henri, then I was obliged to let Wilder go. It’s only fair. I can’t keep him on the back burner.

“Take care, my girl, and make sure you bring him back!”

I’m touched by that expression “my girl” and also by the fact that he had a good word for Henri, his rival in a coma who beat him to the prize without even entering the contest. I regret never having dared to share the whole truth of my life with Wilder.

I take the candles out of my suitcase, light them, and turn off the dazzling ceiling lamp. I go over to the window. The fire in the London sky has been extinguished, and the world is turning its face to night.

In a film or a novel, I think, Wilder would be the willing victim who loves his girlfriend so much that he’s even prepared to accept that she cares for the comatose love of her life. The hearts of female viewers and readers would go out to him.

But that’s not how it works in the real world. I know why I publish new future and dystopian novels rather than romances. Because in principle loving means repeatedly coping with despair and uncertainty and change. Love changes as we do. I don’t know if I could have loved the way I do now when I was in my midtwenties. Someone who wants to write truthfully about love would need to write a new novel about the same couple every year in order to tell the story of how their love evolves, how life comes between them, and the color their affection takes on as the days darken.