“Then you at least need a break from him. Maybe this trip is a good idea. He wants you to spend time with Fox, so do it. See what it’s like to not devote almost every single second of your life to Malcolm.”

“It’s not every second. More like every third second.”

“Joy. You’ll never know what and who else is out there if you don’t try to find it. How much more of your life are you going to give up waiting around for him?”

Is she waiting? And is it truly so bad if she is?

Joy tries seeing the situation from Grace’s point of view. She wants her to try. Try what? Dating? How could replacing Malcolm with someone else possibly be the answer?

It’s not like she has a plethora of alternatives available to her. Even thinking about trying to find someone else feels impossible. Her mom is notorious for trying to set her up with her friends’ sons, most of whom make it obvious sex is their first priority. If she’s good enough, then maybe they’ll want to get to know her after. Some dating apps don’t even have the option to choose asexual as an orientation. Not to mention that she’s thirty—a good percentage of single people her age have kids, and no offense . . . but no. Finding someone else seems highly unlikely to happen at this point. It’s too late. She waited too long. But she can’t tell Grace that.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know,” Joy says. “It really doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s not like I’m hurting anyone.”

“Except yourself,” Grace says.

In college, Joy was known as the party girl in her dorm. Years and years ago, back when her knees didn’t hate her and her world didn’t revolve around a bullet journal.

Getting older isn’t bad—it’s insidious.

Slowly, she stopped drinking every kind of alcohol except for wine at dinner. No more going out every weekend. Her friends settled down. Spontaneous adventures turned into scheduled nights out. Before she knew it, she was thirty with a strict schedule that’s practically sacred and a nine-to-five job. Trading up from go-go dancer to corporate manager wasn’t a half-bad change to make, but Joy couldn’t even remember the last time she saw the inside of the nightclub during operating business hours. The only two-a.m. club she belongs to these days is run by anxiety-induced insomnia.

Being an adult went from creeping up on her to knocking her upside the head with little warning. One night, she realized that watching Netflix and going to bed at ten p.m. (no exceptions!) had become her life. And it was perfectly okay.