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week.”
    I laughed, and then he laughed.

    T hat evening, in his bed, I discovered Zachary had duped me that first time I slept over. “I prefer to lay my head directly on the mattress,” he’d told me. That first night, he had handed me a pillow and said, “Take it. Usually, it’s just for show.”
    This time, he told me the truth. “I only own that one.”
    “One? That’s it? But what if someone—“
    Zachary had already turned off the lights, and in the dark he squeezed my hand, as if to say, Don’t finish your sentence. I heeded his request. No one slept over, I realized.
    “Can we share?” he asked.
    “Okay.”
    Zachary scooted closer, until both of our heads rested on the pillow, and his hot ear pressed against mine.
    The pillow probably bore sweat stains, billowing yellow clouds covered by the case. He had probably slept on it since transitioning from the cradle to his big boy bed. It probably belonged to his dead grandmother. This was it: a single, flat pillow. Normally, such a thing would have sent me running, but, somehow, it struck me—as surprising, or endearing, or, let’s be honest—as repellent. And I liked that. Blow #4.
    Z achary and I settled into a routine. Every few days we had dinner, often at my place or his, to save money, and we talked every day, if only for a moment. We were checking in, as they say. We hadn’t met each other’s friends yet, but introductions were pending.
    One evening, he called me as I was cleaning the kitchen. I had sworn to keep the place clean; I would not let the recycling bin pile up with my sins.
    “I’ve got news,” he said, and I set down the sponge.
    He’d scored a job interview. It was for a receptionist position at a dentist’s office.
    “Seriously?” I asked.
    There was no response.
    “Hello?” I said.
    “I’m excited about the job.”
    “Boring,” I sang, then plugged my nose, went all nasal. “I’ll need to see a copy of your insurance card—“
    “Maybe I like to be bored.”
    I didn’t know how to respond, so this time, I was the silent one.
    Was this Blow #5?

    I can feel you getting excited about Zachary, and that excitement is dangerous, for this doesn’t end how you want it to. This isn’t a story of a woman who sheds her superficiality, who learns to love someone as they truly are, and in the process, learns to love herself. It might have been that kind of story, had things gone the way of happily-ever-after, but they didn’t. The ending changes everything that came before it.
    Zachary and I had been dating for a month, and I assumed we were on the verge of I-love-you, that great emotional cliff off of which couples can never un-jump. Had I been so brazen, I would have said it already, and not in the throes of senseless passion, either, but during one of our myriad innocent moments together. The time, for instance, we talked about the paradisiacal beaches of Hawaii, and Zachary, who had never been, asked if they were like a screen saver. Or, when we went on a walk around the neighborhood, and he took my hand in his, and told me about all the instruments he had tried and failed to master. As he spoke of the piano, he instinctively pushed my hand with his fingers.
    It was after this month together that he called me to see if I wanted to meet at the coffee shop. At the time, I thought it romantic to return to the place where we met, but now I see the cruel circularity.
    He was standing by the counter when I arrived, eyes not on the door, not on me, but on the pastry case. He was gaga for croissants. I called out his name, and he looked up.
    “Hey,” he said, in a low voice. He reached out to hug me.
    I put my cheek to his chest. “Hi.”
    I would have remained there longer, ear to T-shirt, like listening to the ocean, but Zachary was already pulling away.
    “I forgot, you have a cold,” I said.
    He nodded.
    I’d already decided this was the reason we hadn’t seen each other for two days. It wasn’t until later that I