I assumed that would be our last encounter. But in the spring, I heard from her again. We exchanged a few emails, mostly about writing, and eventually developed a frequent correspondence, delving into what I perceived to be intimate and pointed subject matter, including love. Though usually we discussed it theoretically, rather than applying it to either of our specific relationships—I continued to keep Anna out of our conversations. When she needed a reader for an essay she was planning to send out, about Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, she came to me. I immediately bought a copy, bypassing a second viewing of Cruel Intentions. The central theme of the piece danced around the question of marital infidelity and its moral implications versus its permissibility. “Maybe you should come out and say what you think,” I suggested in my feedback. “As of now, it’s hard to tell where you stand on the issue. I’m sure readers are curious to know!”

Where do you live? As I sat in our bedroom, Anna on the other side of the closed door, I repeatedly read the professor’s question, which I interpreted as an imperative. I imagined her sitting in front of her computer, staring at me from behind her Prada glasses. It was a direct challenge—was I ready to pluck her from possibility and encounter her reality? Sometimes I closed my eyes and pictured her while kissing Anna. It was always somewhat awkward and not as exciting as when I pictured it in the abstract, devoid of hideous circumstance. What if our sex was clumsy? I was in between post-anorexia plump and all-night double sets, with no snack breaks—what if she didn’t like my body? My mother had recently impersonated me, puffing up her cheeks and holding out her arms beyond her stomach like an ape. Maybe I could love her from a distance and keep myself intact. Maybe I needed to protect myself against debilitating and devastating heartbreak. Maybe I thought that was possible.