We picked up speed and I wanted more.

“Faster,” I begged. “Aidan, I think I’m going to…” He was moving faster and faster into me, and I was still building, building, moving toward the top, then after a second of pure nothingness, I exploded, exquisite pleasure radiating outward and inward, afterwaves throbbing through me.

Then he was coming, his fingers tangled in my hair, his eyes closed, his face a picture of anguish, saying my name. “Anna, Anna, Anna.”

For a long time afterward, neither of us spoke. Slick with sweat and knocked out by pleasure, we were flattened against the sheets. I was having little conversations with myself in my head: That was amazing. That was incredible. But I said nothing; anything would sound like a cliché.

“Anna?”

“Mmm?”

He rolled over on top of me and said, “That was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”

But it wasn’t just good sex. I felt like I knew him. I felt like he loved me. We went to sleep spooned together, his arm tight around my stomach, my hand resting on his hip.

I awoke to the sound of a cup clattering beside my ear. “Coffee,” he said. “Time to get up.”

I pulled myself out of my blissful slumber and tried to sit up.

“You’re already dressed,” I said, surprised.

“Yeah.” He wouldn’t meet my eye. He sat on the foot of the bed, pulling on his socks, his face bent downward, his back to me, and suddenly I was wide-awake.

I’d been here before and I knew the rules: keep it light, don’t push him, let him do his elastic-band thing.

Well, fuck that. I deserved better.

I sipped my coffee and said, “You haven’t forgotten tomorrow night? Shake’s air-guitar stuff? You still coming?”

Without turning to look at me, he mumbled into his knees, “I won’t be around this weekend.”

I forgot to breathe. I felt like I’d been slapped. Looked like I should have done the toe-touching, bum-waggling thing after all.

“Gotta go to Boston,” he went on. “Stuff to sort out.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever?” He turned around. He looked surprised.

“Yes, Aidan, whatever. You sleep with me, you go weird on me, and now, all of a sudden, you’re not around this weekend. Whatever.”

His face drained of color. “Anna, yeah, look. I guess there’s no right time for this.” Something bad was coming. The end of me and Aidan. Just when I’d really started to like him. Bums.

“What?” I asked sharply.

“But how would you feel about, you know, you and me, being exclusive?”

“Being exclusive?”

Being exclusive was nearly like getting engaged.

“Yeah, just you and me. I don’t know if you’re still seeing other guys…”

I shrugged. Neither did I. And there was a much more important question: “You still seeing other girls?”

A pause. “That’s why I need to go to Boston.”

16

On the flight from Dublin to New York, my injuries caused a few nudges, but nothing like the stir they’d caused on the outward journey. Especially as Rachel, my fierce protector, challenged and psychoanalyzed any other passenger who stared too hard at me.

“Why are you so fascinated with mutilation?” she asked angrily of one person who kept turning around in his seat to look at me. “What are you afraid of?”

“Stop it,” I said to her. “He’s only seven.”

Once we’d landed and got our luggage and gone outside, I had a bit of a freaker about getting into a taxi. I was literally trembling with fear, but Rachel said, “This is New York City, you’ll need to use cabs all the time. You’re going to have to get back on the horse at some stage. Why not do it now while I’m here to take care of you?”

I had no choice: I either got in the cab or got the plane back to Ireland. With knees that felt watery with dread, I got in.

On the drive Rachel talked about things—stuff that had nothing to do with anything, but was diverting all the same. Celebrities who’d lost weight. Gained weight. Hit their hairdresser. It kept me calm.

Then we crossed the bridge into Manhattan. I was almost surprised to find that it was still there, still going on with its business, still being Manhattan, regardless of what had happened to me.

Then we were in my neighborhood, the so-called Mid-Village. (Between the charm of the West Village and the edginess of the East Village, Mid-Village was a realtor’s term to try to give character to a place that didn’t really have much. But with Manhattan rents being what they were, me and Aidan were unimaginably grateful to live there.)

And then we were outside our apartment building and the shock of seeing it still standing there made my stomach lurch so much I was afraid I’d puke.

Even with Rachel carrying my luggage, climbing up the three flights of stairs on my bad knee was a bit of a challenge, but as soon as I put my key in the lock—and Rachel insisted that it was I who opened the door and not her—I sensed someone else in the apartment and I almost jackknifed with relief: he was still here. Oh, thank God. Only to discover that the person was Jacqui. Thoughtfully, she’d come along so I wouldn’t be upset by arriving at an empty place, but my disappointment was so acute that I had to check every room, just in case.

Not that there were many rooms to check. There was the living room with a cramped kitchen annex carved out of it, a half bath (i.e., a shower and no bath), and at the back our gloomy bedroom with its sliver of glass looking into the stairwell (funds hadn’t stretched to a proper window). But we’d made it cozy: a lovely big bed with a carved headboard, a couch wide enough for us to lie on side by side, and vital accessories like scented candles and a wide-screen TV.

I hobbled from room to room, I even looked behind the shower curtain, but he wasn’t there. At least the photos of him were still on the walls; some “thoughtful” soul hadn’t taken it upon themselves to get rid of them.

Rachel and Jacqui pretended nothing strange was happening, then Jacqui smiled and I stared at her in shock. “What happened to your…teeth?”

“Present from Lionel 9.” Some rap star. “He decided at four in the morning to get his teeth gold-plated. I found a dentist willing to do it. Lionel was so grateful he gave me the gift of two gold incisors. I hate them,” she said. “I look like a bling Dracula. But I can’t get them removed until he’s left town.”