In November, Karim came to visit with his friend Martin, who also happened to be Dutch. I brought the Sacrifice along almost everywhere we went, and if she wasn’t there, then I was talking about her, telling stories about things she’d done, funny things she’d said. “Are you in love with her or something?” Karim asked.

“What?” I felt my cheeks redden. I had never told my brother about Kate, or that I was attracted to women. I couldn’t imagine how he would react to it; the thought of him knowing was mortifying. “Of course not,” I said. “Actually, I was thinking Martin might be interested, since they both live in Amsterdam.” I turned to Martin.

“Um, no thanks,” he said. “She seems like kind of a brat.”

After their visit I got evicted. Apparently, guests weren’t allowed in the apartment complex, and renter’s rights seemed to hardly exist in Tuscany. I considered leaving the country. My entry visa had expired, and even with my job I was barely making enough to live on. Maybe it was time to go home.

The Sacrifice cried when I told her this. “You can’t leave,” she said.

“But I don’t have an apartment anymore,” I said. “And I could barely afford the one I had.”

“Then you can live with me,” she said. “You can share my room!” I felt my chest tighten, and immediately I thought of Kate. During an argument toward the end of our relationship she tried to break up with me, but I begged for another chance. “But I’m Catholic!” she said. I was able to muster a laugh through my tears. “And I’m Muslim! Isn’t that worse?”

She then offered up a compromise: we could continue to live together, to share a room, a bed, even, but no sex. In desperation I accepted, and the torturous situation helped me slowly wither away.

I looked up at the Sacrifice. “Okay,” I said.

That evening I got my stuff together and hauled it to her place. I dragged my suitcase up the stairs to the bedroom and then lay down on one of the two single beds. “Why don’t we push them together,” she said, “and make one big bed?”

We stayed up most nights talking and watching movies on a laptop in our makeshift full-size bed. I told her about Kate, only I referred to her as “Jeremy,” concerned that I might scare her if I told her the truth. She told me about her last boyfriend, how while she enjoyed the sex she didn’t know if it was possible to form an emotional connection with a man. “Sounds like you had that with Jeremy, though,” she said. And I nodded quickly, unable to look her in the eye.

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