Kit disappears for a week. And, during that week, Della will not leave my apartment. She follows me from room to room, asks for snacks, and cries into my throw pillows. I suggest she go to his job and ask him what’s up. But she says only trashy girls chase men, and instead stalks his Facebook.

I try to leave my apartment as much as possible, but she asks if she can come with me when I leave. I’m smothered in places a person shouldn’t be subjected to smothering: the grocery store, the dry cleaners, the gas station where she gets out of the car to stand next to me while I pump gas. I sneak out once, when she’s using the bathroom, and ten minutes later she blows up my phone until I answer.

“Where are you?” she sobs.

When I tell her I ran to the bookstore, she says she’ll meet me there, and shows up in huge sunglasses and a tight black dress.

“Why are you dressed like that?” I ask. I am crouched in the trashy novel section, looking for cheap thrills and deep skills.

“Kit is here,” she says. “I saw on his Instagram.”

Shoot. I didn’t. He hardly ever posts pictures.

“Were you going for the clubbing-in-the-middle-of-the-day look?” I ask her.

“Shhhh,” she says, flapping her hand at me. “Here he comes.”

I have The Barron’s Lust in my hand when Kit comes walking up. I stand up, so I’m not at crotch level, and glance at Della. Her face is indifferent, but I can see her hands trembling. I’m caught in the middle of a couple’s quarrel, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

“Easy Dells,” I whisper. “He’s just a boy who has a lot of explaining to do.”

Her shoulders straighten up, and I see her pointy little chin jut forward.

Kit notices my book first. “Whoa!” he says. “Bet it’s at least ten inches.”

I put it back on the shelf.

“Where have you been?” Della growls. I flinch, but try to look supportive.

Kit makes a face. “Nowhere new. Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?”

Della rips them off her face to reveal two swollen eyes.

“You haven’t returned any of my calls. I’ve been a mess.”

I take a few steps back, trying to ease out of the smut aisle before they start fighting.

Kit rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Oh. Sorry about that. When I’m writing, I get distracted.”

“Writing?” Her face is screwed up in confusion.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been working on something new.”

“What do you write?” I blurt.

He notices me at the end of the aisle and gives me a funny smile.

“Nothing serious,” he says. “I just tinker.” He looks at Della. “But, this time I’m into it. I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.” And then, with a side-glance to me, he says “I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee.”

Join the club, I want to tell him. On the sleep and the coffee.

“I … I didn’t know,” Della says. “It felt like you didn’t want to speak to me.”

Kit sighs. Deep.

“Sometimes I’m not good about keeping in touch. I disappear. I don’t mean to upset anyone, I swear. I just get involved with what I’m doing.”

“Oh,” she says. “Now I feel stupid.”

“Don’t.”

And then they kiss in the smut aisle. And my initial thought is that I’m watching him cheat on me. Or maybe not me—dream Helena. But it feels weird and gross.

I drive home, book-less. At least I’ll get my apartment back.

After finals, I sign up for an art class. I don’t even tell Neil. It’s stupid, I know. You have one lousy dream, and you think you’re destined for coloring book greatness. But my instructor is a kooky old guy named Neptune who walks around the classroom barefoot and smells like Vicks Vapor Rub. I’m totally into him. He tells us that when he was a young man, Joan Mitchell commissioned him to paint her nude. If I can’t be Neptune’s favorite at the end of this eight-week session, life isn’t even worth living. I want him to want to paint me naked. Is that creepy? Oh my God, I’m so creepy. I’m not particularly good at any of the assignments, but one time Neptune tells me that he likes my interpretation of a sea horse.

“It’s like a seahorse who was born in the sky,” he says. I smell vodka on his breath, but still. Weren’t all of the greatest artists junkies and alcoholics? I frame my airborne seahorse and hang it in my bedroom. It’s just the beginning. I’m going to be so super good at this one day.

Della invites us to dinner at her apartment a few weeks later. I haven’t seen either her or Kit since the smutty bookstore kiss. And I don’t want to. I’ve managed not to think of him at all. Even in art class when I draw a tree house that looks more like a minivan. Even when I scramble eggs. It’s easy to forget a guy who has melty smurf eyes and a melancholy face. I’m not about that life.

“I don’t want to go,” I tell Neil. “I have to look for a job. I’m a grown up.”

“Being a grown up can wait for a night,” he says. “Della’s been complaining that she never sees you anymore.”

Della hasn’t been complaining to me. I wonder why she’d talk to Neil about something like that.

“Okay,” I say. “But she can’t cook, so maybe we should eat dinner before we go.”