“Jesus, fuck, good thing I didn’t know what you were getting me into,” Katie says. “You owe me a day of rototilling.”

“Deal,” I say. I look in the fridge for beers but there’s just water and old apple juice.

“Water’s good,” Katie says. “I gotta head out soon anyway.”

I’m by the sink filling her glass when I hear her say it. When she’d first emailed to tell me she was coming, I hadn’t wanted her spending the night—there was no way I was giving up my bed, she could sleep on the floor with my camping mattress—but now I’d crash in the kitchen if she’d stay. I bring the water into the room.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah. My kitty’s gonna pitch a fit if I’m not back. I told you that in the email I sent. Oh, right, you don’t check emails.”

“But I have a bedroll I can use. Seriously, it’s no problem. You can totally have my bed for the night.”

“Aw, honey, I wish I’d known you wanted me to stay. I didn’t want to impose.”

“But when are you leaving?”

“After I drink this water and sit for a minute in this luscious cold air. I really need to get back before midnight.”

And suddenly it hits me just how much I do remember. How we’d dreamed about traveling to Germany together. How we were going to join an art house in Berlin, be revolutionaries, change the art world. And even though she’s only been here for an afternoon, everything is imprinted with her—the bird chair where she sits, the jam jar on the counter, that stupid cat poster on the wall—and I can already feel how empty my apartment will be without her. The AC will be blowing cool air into the room, drowning out the noise of the street, and it’ll be perfect and beautiful and exactly how I’ve always wanted my place to feel, and I know I can catch up on work, or try to find a guy on Firestarter, or cry over some good comfort porn, but I don’t want any of those things.

“Don’t go.” The words tumble from my lips before I can stop them. Because in a moment I know I’ll be washed under the tide of another seven years of this city, full of face after face of strangers, penis after penis, drowned by endless dick pics of men I don’t know. “Please, don’t go,” I say again. And I’m not sure what exactly I’m asking for, only that I need her.