“I had it on my bedroom wall when I was a teenager. Along with a million ads from magazines and printouts of celebrities. I used to stare at it for hours when I was a moody teenager, listening to Fiona Apple or Mazzy Star or Death Cab or eventually Lana Del Rey. I used to call it sad girling.”

I feel him chuckle. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

For the first time, I’m telling him something about myself that he doesn’t already know.

“Does it?”

“Well, you’re not a very sad person. Restless, yes, but unhappy, no. When you do get sad, it’s always a little funny like that. Sad girling. It’s funny. Melodramatic. Anyway, you were saying.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I identified so much with the girl in the painting. Obviously, I was in high school so I was overly emotional about everything and I could relate to her as she stands on the outside of the presumed fun. She’s alone, trapped in her own internal landscape.”

“Mm.”

“I thought I’d grow out of it, especially if I was the one on the screen—not in the audience, not in the hall. But instead, I’ve only come to get it more and more. I still kind of feel like her. Especially being here. I feel like I’m on the outside of my own life. I mean, I am. Outside of both, I guess.”

He squeezes me a little closer.

“I think she’s an usher.”

“What?”

He points at the girl in the print. “She’s in a uniform. I think she’s bored at work. I don’t know that she’s upset as much as she’s just … waiting.”

I sit up and squint at her. “Huh.”

A log cracks behind us and he turns to check on it. It’s fine, so he pulls me closer and relaxes again.

“You’re not on the outside of your life looking in. Everyone isn’t off having some perfect moment and you’re left out of it. You’re alive right now. Whether your real life is back in California, or it’s here, or if it’s on Pluto, it doesn’t matter. You’re here right now. I wish you didn’t feel like things were such high stakes. You can be happy, you know. Look, let’s say you’re right, that girl there is on the outside, yeah? Everyone’s inside enjoying the film, and she’s in the hall.” He shrugs against me. “She could walk in. And maybe the happiness is closer than she thinks.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“But maybe it is, also. It’s the indecision that’ll kill ya.”

I look up at him and he looks down at me. I love being this close to him. I love the firmness of him.