Phil spoke softly now, hoping to keep her calm. “I think I like things…like they are now. Can’t we do this for a while and see how we’re feeling when you graduate?”

Elizabeth broke into a sob so heavy the bed shook.

“Jesus,” Phil said under his breath, “What did I say?”

She tossed the pillow from her lap and pulled Phil’s navy sheets off her legs. She stood up from the bed and frantically paced around the room, grabbing the few things that belonged to her. A hairbrush. A DVD.

“Elana’s right,” Elizabeth said, stopping to glare at him. “She says you’re just biding your time until I’m done with school. She says you’re a serial monogamist who is in love with his mother.”

Phil’s eyes were wide. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he barked. “You’re going to listen to Elana? Because she’s had so much luck with men? Jesus. In love with my mother? That’s classic, Elizabeth. Just because I don’t want to marry you, I’m some sort of Norman Bates character. That’s perfect.”

Elizabeth’s froze. The hairbrush fell to the floor.

“So that’s it. You don’t want to marry me.”

Phil looked down and instinctively placed his hands on his stomach. It burned uncomfortably. He needed some milk. “That’s not what I said,” he whispered, wincing from the pain.

“Yes, it is,” Elizabeth responded, her voice calmer than it had been. She walked out of his bedroom and shut the door behind her softly. He could hear her gently close his front door and then her own. He was frightened by her sudden composure.

After a few moments of silence, Phil took a deep breath and left his room, tiptoeing to the kitchen so that Elizabeth wouldn’t hear any movement from next door. He poured himself a glass of milk and chugged it, picturing the cold, thick liquid coating his tender insides.

He wanted desperately to turn on his television—not to play Sex and the City to lure Elizabeth back, but to watch ESPN. He just wanted to zone out and forget about everything. But he remained frozen in the center of his living-room sofa, with the television off, too paranoid that Elizabeth might hear him through their shared wall if he turned it on. It seemed insensitive to watch SportsCenter after what had just transpired. Instead he flipped through old copies of Sports Illustrated until he could no longer stand the silence and then retired to his room, where he watched ESPN in bed, with the volume so low that he could only make out every few words.

His seclusion didn’t end for quite some time. For weeks, Phil lived as quietly as he could, fearful of dropping a dish or speaking too loud while he was on the phone, petrified that Elizabeth would be reminded that he was alive. When he used the elevator, he found himself repeatedly pushing the buttons, as if his manic movements would make the old car travel faster. On game nights he sprinted from the front of the building to his car, worried he would catch her on her way home from class. He managed not to see her at all.