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to know what to do. He stammers a bit, offers half-hearted
sympathies, and then takes out his phone and stares at it for a
moment, raises his eyebrows in obviously-artificial surprise,
and tells me he’s gotten a text.

“Oh,” he says, “I’m so sorry, my roommate just sent me a
message—I— have to go, it’s—” He waves his phone and then
seems to give up, shaking his head, since I’m staring at him,
unresponsive. He reaches into his wallet, fishes out a ten-
dollar bill, leaves it on the table. “I’ll see you at tutoring next
week, then.”

“Right,” I say. “Yeah.” He gets up and walks away. I don’t
even have it in me to be upset; I just sigh. It was my own fault
anyway. Of course that was going to be scary, for a first date.
Of course he’d want to run away screaming. It was the only
reasonable response. I leave a few minutes later, draining my
coffee before I go.

⁂

The day before I’m supposed to have another tutoring
session, Calvin from the classics department texts to tell me
that he can’t make it, and that some “unanticipated academic
responsibilities” of his mean that the department is going to
find me another tutor for the semester. When Elia returns to
the apartment, she finds me sitting on the kitchen floor,
eating mint chocolate chip ice cream straight from the
container.

“I don’t even know what the point is anymore,” I tell her.
“You’ll feel better once you’ve made a decision about
whether or not you’re staying,” she says.
“But none of my options are good ones.”
“Of course they’re not,” she says. “But they’re the ones
you’ve got.” She pauses in the doorway to the bedroom.
“Just... do it soon, okay? You can’t keep drawing this out
forever.”
“I know,” I say. “I know.”

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