“But you just got here,” Liam says.

“My foot is going to fall off,” I say.

“Don’t be such a paranoid baby,” Seung Hun says. “They’re not fucking.”

“Yeah, you baby, they’re not fucking,” Liam says.

I explore the origin of each rustle, snap, and flash of seemingly luminous flesh along the trail but come up empty-handed. They’re not out here. At the hostel, I check the dining room, but find only Carl, tucked in a fetal ball in one of his crying jags. Jørgen’s room is empty. I crawl into the bushes in front of Maddy’s window. I peer up through the blinds, at the same time almost wishing that I weren’t doing this to myself.

She’s there with the strapping ass of Jørgen on top of her and he’s staring into her eyes without blinking in an attempt, I’m sure, to connect to her inner spirit animal or some New Agey crap. This could take a while. He’s boasted that he knows how to last for hours and have multiple orgasms without ejaculating. As much as I hate myself for it, I get hard. How does the saying go? The erection never lies. That was Freud, I think. Either Freud or the Marquis de Sade. I watch until I can’t take it anymore. I run in anger and disgust and shame back to the beach.

I pull out my dick and stroke frantically toward the horizon. I come on that wet lip of sand washed over by the tide, which, in a way, is like flushing it. Snot and hot tears run down my face.

“You bitch!” I cry. I bang my fists against the cradle of civilization, surf spurting up with every strike. “You bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! I love you!” I stop when I hear the approach of footsteps. Someone has thrown himself down sniffling on the sand behind me. It’s Seung Hun, and his face is also scrunched up in a mucusy mess. I’m curious if he wandered down here with a rejection boner as well.

“I just talked to Soo Yeon,” he says, “and she told me she can’t talk to me until she figures out who she is and what she wants. On top of that, my dad has cut me off.”

“What did you do?” I ask.

“During my last visit, Soo Yeon was actually flirting with me,” he replies. “My dad walked into us fooling around. I just want to be with her forever and ever, but I know she will never choose me over him.”

I ponder telling him all about Maddy and me, to point out that his situation isn’t special and also unlikely to be the end. He’ll probably witness his father’s prolonged death in some hospital bed and find Soo Yeon’s charms diminished by the forces of familiarity and nostalgia. What ultimately lets us move on is not acceptance but boredom. Then again, why take away his grand sense of personal catastrophe—the narrative that might be his one consolation in the days ahead?