Fiona didn’t ask about my life or how I’d been living in Reno, but she said she had a lot of respect for my survival skills. She knew I’d been surviving somehow. If she ever got to know me well enough, she’d find out I’d been ruined like everything else, ruined by men and drugs and the sound of my own hand hitting my mother’s face.

I think she wanted my company more than my favors. The little chores, we called them. We figured out small ways to pass the endless hours of our lives. We watched old black-and-whites and guessed which femme fatales would fall in love with the detectives, which ones would kill them, and which ones would do both. Sometimes we rooted for the Utah Jazz on television. They were the closest we had to a sports team of our own. We didn’t talk about our most private feelings or our histories, but you realize there’s a whole set of things to say to someone that aren’t about you or the other person.

At least I was another beating heart in the room. That can mean something, I think, depending on your situation. One time Fiona pulled off my sneakers. “If you’re running around all day for me,” she said, “I want to see your feet.” She took out a cream that smelled like peppermint and started kneading circles into the roughest patches—the back of my heel, the ball of toughened sole. “Just relax,” she said. “You don’t have to point your toes.” She kneaded the joints until I felt my whole foot go loose, a bunch of minor bones caught in the net of my tough skin.

I reached for the lotion once she was done, but she stopped me. She said she didn’t want another person to see her feet for the rest of her life. They showed her age.

“Plus,” she said, “I’m not done with you yet.” She stood behind me and massaged my back—with her bare hands this time, fingers twisting under the collar of my shirt—until I could feel the knots dissolving into muscle like lumps of sand.

When she kissed me, her scar brushed against my lips. Its edges were rough like sandpaper. “Is this okay?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, and then I kissed her back, stuck my tongue into the warm well of her mouth. “I want this,” I whispered. “I really do.”

I started paying for my room once we got involved. I told her we couldn’t get money mixed up in what we were doing together. I wanted to keep things separate. I was still doing jobs for Bruce a few times a month, taking the Reno bus. I told Fiona I was going shopping. “You never buy anything,” she said. “Or else you never show me.”

But once I started paying rent, I couldn’t hide it. Telling her straight after all that time made me realize what a burden the lying had been.