Announcements play on a loop over the airport’s sound system—you must check in two hours prior to international flights, the gate will close ten minutes before departure, allow forty minutes for security—in a robotic-sounding female voice as disembodied and ubiquitous as the voice of God. She repeats herself in Japanese, French, German. Airports seem to exist in a kind of purgatory outside of time and space. You have no control over when those you’re expecting will arrive, or when you’ll be allowed to continue on to your destination. Outside of security, I’m surrounded by people waiting. The travelers pass by me in a rush, off to go stand in a long line to remove their shoes and coats and electronics and three-ounce bottles of liquid from their carry-ons before they disappear on the other side, continuing on to wherever they’re going.

The longer I stay, the more inconceivable it feels to leave and go to the gym, where rows of middle-aged people huff and puff, trying to stave off holiday weight gain, or to head back home, where my parents are trying so mightily to go on with their lives. I watch the reader boards as they flash the names of dozens of far-flung cities. Some, such as Zurich and Vienna, I’ve flown through many times in another life. Others—Dubai, Phnom Penh—I’ve never even thought about going to. Except now I do; suddenly any place feels preferable to here. Then I see Buenos Aires come up, and it hammers my heart.

Blair. I haven’t returned his last several phone calls even though I miss him more than I can bear. I’m not sure that night in Buenos Aires would feel like the best night of my life if it hadn’t also been the last night of my life as I knew it. I go to the ticket counter, thinking I’m somehow playing a joke on myself as I ask about the next available flight. But then, I’m pulling out my credit card and my passport. For a moment, I gaze at the latter in amazement, wondering why my passport is in my purse. Then I remember that I lost my driver’s license the other night at Silver Fox. A mortifying sequence of events comes back to me—I’m laughing drunkenly, exuding the licorice smell of Jägermeister, and spilling the contents of my purse on the floor. The license clattering away, gone forever.