I hesitate. “I’ll think about it,” I say. I know that by letting her in when I’m in need, I tie myself to her again, this gaping vulnerability nothing less than the rope.

At home later that evening I hear a knock on my back door. I lift the shade and see Matías standing outside the window, sweating and frowning. I point to the phone pressed to my ear. “I’m talking to Claire,” I tell him calmly, as though that’s normal. I’d sent her an email after finding out, along with my number. She called ten minutes later, and right then we’re running through our calendars, each remembering nights we weren’t with him, the lies he’d told about staying in to work when in fact he was with one of us.

He puts his hands in the air like I’m about to arrest him. “I’m crazy,” he says. “I’m just … crazy. I only did this because I was terrified you were going to leave me. I need to tell you—”

“Why don’t you tell Claire as well,” I say, placing the call on speakerphone.

“It’s you, not Claire. I’m in love with you.”

My stomach twitches. He’s desperately trying to salvage one of us, and I am the most susceptible. “You are a sick fuck,” I say. “You have no conscience. You’re a sociopath. A narcissist. You’re a sex addict!”

“I’m not! Sometimes, people recently out of marriages—”

“Shut up,” I say. “Just stop talking.”

“I think I’m gonna go,” Claire interrupts.

“Do you want to come over and confront him yourself?” I give her my address and she says she’ll be over in ten minutes. We hang up, and now I am alone with him. “You purposefully led me away from the bar after my reading the other night, didn’t you? Because you thought Claire might be there?”

He nods, and I shudder. I take a deep breath and wait for the wave of fury to subside. “I’m actually afraid of you.”

“Look, I may be pathetic,” he says, “but I’m not dangerous.”

“How do I know that? I don’t even know who you really are.”

“Did Claire tell you I ended things with her on the car ride back from Chicago?”

I feel my blood heating. “After fucking her all weekend? That’s classy.”

“I know I’ve lost you,” he says. “I know you don’t believe anything I say anymore. But when she gets here, I want to tell her—”

“Don’t. Don’t even dare.”