“Not currently. Come on.” Joy waves him in, moving over to make space for him on the bed. It’s only after he shakes his head no and sits on the floor that she remembers. Today was the Big Summer Day. She presses the heel of her hands into her eyes and takes a tired, shaking breath. The physical separation is starting. She stretches back out onto the bed to get comfortable. “How did it go?”

“Not at all like I expected.” Malcolm moves closer, resting his forearms on the edge of the mattress inches away from her.

Joy fills the gap, pillow folded under her head. “No?”

He shakes his head.

If that’s all he wants to give, she doesn’t feel right asking for more. The fact that he isn’t on the bed with her now tells her everything she needs to know anyway.

Malcolm asks, “What would I do without you?”

“Depends.” She covers her mouth to yawn. “Is it an if we never met situation or an I died situation?”

“Jesus, Joy.”

“What? You asked a question. I’m asking specifics.” She pauses for a moment to blink away the tendrils of sleep tugging at her. “If I died, you’d be devastated, obviously. Weekly visits to my grave tree to talk to me, a sort of memorial shrine in your house full of your favorite pictures of us, and so on. Now, if we never met . . . I don’t know. I think you’d still be successful. And happy.”

“I’d miss you.” His voice is soft, and his touch is softer as he quickly brushes his nose against hers. “I wouldn’t know you, but I would miss you. Even if I was successful, happy, all my dreams came true, everything would always feel slightly off because you weren’t there. I wouldn’t know why, but I’d always feel sad about it. I think I’d always feel incomplete.”

“Don’t.” Joy wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “What’s wrong? It was your big day. Everything’s good, right?”

Malcolm sniffles. There aren’t any more tears—just the one Joy caught. “Hey, do you remember how we met?”

Joy smiles. “I do. At the LGBT Alliance mixer.” This is one of their rituals and why she can remember it so well—out of nowhere, he’ll ask if she remembers and retell the entire ordeal. She loves listening to him, as if she doesn’t star in the story too, and seeing herself through his eyes.

Malcolm begins, “The club president decided to set up informational booths for each letter. I was the only ace member, so they put me in charge of the A-station.”

“Naturally.”

“You walked in wearing the shortest pair of jean shorts I’ve ever seen in my life, to this day, and a practically see-through tank top.”

“They weren’t that short.”

“Everyone could see your cheeks.”