family who’s willing to love you and run off to me, who you haven’t seen for a decade, expecting to get taken care of.” Jean tapped her cigarette; ash drifted onto Julie’s leg. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Jules, but I just don’t see why I would.”

Kelly and I had been living in Princeton for nearly a month. Kelly was going to school. The School. I stocked shelves at a ramshackle Weis and attended community college. I’d declined a few full rides to middling colleges to trail her to Jersey. I was in love with Kelly. Blind, impassioned, predictable love. I expected her to support my sacrifice — my commitment to her — but she got sick of me quickly. Each morning I’d wake up at five to the clack clack clack of Kelly typing an essay in bed, coffee already thick on her breath, and she’d point to the door and say, “Out.” In the shower I’d tug at myself till I came, thinking, at least I’m not jerking to Kelly on Skype. At least I still had the scent of her hair in the morning. Her legs on my lap as we sat on the couch watching movies.

Was love a good enough reason to join Kelly in Jersey? It was. Love is the right reason for anything. But perhaps we weren’t really in love. Perhaps what we’d felt, when we moved in together, was the hummingbird flutter of loneliness and insatiable loins. I began doubt my decision to move. I started pricing flights back to Oregon. I skipped class. I smoked weed alone in the bathroom, wondering what I’d done to deserve such a fate. But pain longs for distraction, displacement, and when Julie started calling Kelly, to talk about living with Jean, my pain was yanked inside-out, becoming a loving obsession with Julie.