When I was out of the city and in the country, I felt choked, cut off from the vine. There weren’t enough heartbeats in the country; you had to be patient, have an ear for the voice of nature. I found that sort of silence too loud, so I squashed my life, compressed it into a dozen tiny studio apartments. I did that over and over, sampling the cities of America, learning their beats and then moving on. New York, and New Orleans, Chicago, and Miami. I wore bikinis and tanned to golden brown, and then I faded to a milky white and covered myself in down coats and scarves—my nose perpetually dressed in a cold. I found reasons not to go home to the city that I loved most. It was almost time, though. I was on my last stop.

Except…David. He was making it difficult to think of leaving. I told myself that I was just having fun, so of course, I didn’t want to leave yet. But like all of my relationships, the desire to be with him would soon fade out and then I’d be ready to go home.

David had this grin. His lips would compress in a pucker between two deep smile lines and he’d look at you like he could already see you naked. Sometimes when he was singing, he’d grin like that and girls would lose their shit, holding their hands up to the stage and screaming. I could imagine him in a larger setting, grinning like that to an audience of thousands. It made me feel sick to think about. But, when he smiled at me like that, I imagined having his babies. I never told him that, but I did. Me imagining babies. His grin thwarted my mission. I was a muse, not a wife, not a mother. More than anything I was scared. Perhaps Ann had been right.

I learned that the best time to ask him questions about himself was post-sex while still tangled together and recovering. He’d taught me that trick the first time we’d been together, asking about my boots. Sometimes we took turns asking each other things; sometimes there was just one talker and one listener.

“Why are you a singer? Why do you have a band?” We were camped out in my bed, the clean white sheets tucked around us. Outside the rain fell. As soon as I said those words, he rolled onto his back and started laughing. Then he repeated everything I said in the worst attempt at a British accent I’d ever heard.

“Jackass,” I said. “So much for being interested in your life.”

“Come on, English.” He rubbed his socked feet against mine and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m a singer because I’m a narcissist. Isn’t that the way? And I have a band because I can’t play all the instruments myself.” His eyes were all lit up. He got off on teasing me. I got off on it too.

“No one is that basic,” I said. “We all have our shit.”

He rubbed a hand across his face and stared up at the ceiling.

“Why do I feel like I just hit a nerve?” I asked. I was suddenly excited. David was hesitant to talk about himself, he preferred to listen. To me, that was the mark of a true artist—someone who gathered instead of took. I propped my head on my hand and ran my fingers up his chest. If I could get him a little bit hard he’d tell me anything I wanted to know.

“What is it? Tell me,” I urged.

“I’m average,” he said. “Middle child all the way.” I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. “—So I had to find something to be good at. To set me apart from my cocksucker older brother and my needy baby sister.” I laughed at his description of his siblings. Whenever people spoke about their siblings, there was both love and resentment present.

“So, you…”

“Started playing on my older brother’s guitar. Turns out I had a pretty good voice too. But I didn’t know that until a girl told me.”

“What did she say? Who was she?”

“She was my neighbor. She’d hear me singing in the backyard and one day she told me that I sounded like Mark Lanegan. I didn’t know who he was so I looked him up. The biggest compliment came when she asked me to sing at her birthday party. She was three years older than me. Paid me a hundred bucks too. First paid gig.”

I imagined long legs, tan, dark brown hair—and I was jealous of her because she heard him sing before I did, recognized Lanegan in his voice.

“Do you think you sound like him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think about it.”

“But that’s what narcissists do,” I said. “They think about themselves…”

He laughed, lifting my fingers to his lips and kissing them. He turned to look at me. “Do you think I’m good?”

The vulnerability in his eyes warned me to be careful: soft eyes and thick lashes. He cared about my opinion. How had I become that to him in such a short time? And he was good…but he could be better. Maybe that was cruel of me.

“I think there’s always room to be better,” I told him.

“What does that mean?”

I rolled away, aware that I’d committed a sin. I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut. The truth wasn’t necessary in every situation. Tact, Yara.

“You’re good. No one can refute that. But, it’s almost like you’re faking it.”

TACT, YARA!

David got out of bed and walked out of the room. I couldn’t see his face so I didn’t know what he was thinking.

“You don’t have to be a bloody baby about it,” I called after him.

I got up too, pulled on my clothes in a huff. I heard the stitching rip in my shirt as I yanked it over my head. I was angry he’d taken offense, angry I’d said what I had. What was wrong with me? I blew things up in less than a month. I needed to take a walk, clear my head. I was halfway to the door still trying to wedge the heel of my foot into my shoe when he grabbed me around the waist. He lifted me easily and I didn’t struggle when he carried me back to the bed and tossed me down onto my back. It was one of those moments when I realized I could be mature and talk this out instead of leaving town and starting a new life. I had already decided on Santa Fe.

“Just because you hurt my damn feelings doesn’t mean I want you to go,” he said. “My feelings are my problem, not yours.”

I propped a leg on my knee and stared up at the ceiling, not convinced. I could smell him on the sheets.

“How mature,” I managed. It was true, but it came out sounding sarcastic. Not many people could do what he’d just done.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m faking too,” he said. “It was a hard thing to hear. Like you’re in my brain fucking around with my insecurities.”

I sat up right away. “Is your family supportive of what you do?”

“Are you kidding? No way. They want me to do something respectable with my life. This has all become as much about proving them wrong as it is about the passion.”

“Well, there’s your problem then,” I said, sighing. “When you try to prove your art you’re going to fail every time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know that?” he asked.

He wasn’t being snarky. It was a genuine question from a genuine man. A naked man. He never seemed to notice that he was naked, not even now as he leaned against the doorframe, half erect.

“I’m not an artist, but I’ve been with artists.” I glanced down at his dick and cleared my throat. “The real ones and the fakes. I’ve seen them succeed and fail, and the ones who fail always had something to prove. It became about the proof rather than the art. The purity was lost.”

He stared at me for a long time. “I get the impression that you think I’m deeper than I actually am. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”

I laughed. Maybe he was right. The last man I’d slept with read books on philosophy as wide as my face, and took trips to places like India and the Congo to discover himself. He’d bored me to death with his self-exploration, never taking a moment to step outside of his own head and explore what was inside of everyone else’s. David was his opposite.

“I’ll tone it down,” I said. “I’m just so hungry for information.”

“Don’t change,” he said softly. “I sort of like it. I know myself better with you around. I also get more headaches…”

“Because I’m too much all the time?”

“Because you’re so beautiful you make my eyes hurt.”

That was enough to woo an already lovesick girl. I pulled off my pants, took off my shirt, and climbed back into bed.

“Are we together, Yara?” he asked. “Are we in something?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want a relationship. You know that.”

“Okay.” He nodded.

“Now come here,” I said, patting the bed. “You’re naked.”