The other night at a concert, my brother’s fiancé turned to me and said, Your brother is the only person I like all the time. The only one, she said. Everyone else I grow sick of or annoyed at. But not him. Her comment stayed with me because I feel the same way about you. Even when we are fighting. Even when you are cranky. Even when you eat the last of the quiche. Even when I don’t want to run to Ralph’s and Sprout’s and Trader Joe’s and Target all in the same day. I want to be domestic with you, you said during our affair, when the closest thing to domesticity we could achieve was wandering around Rite Aid together after the gym, pretending we were a married couple picking up shampoo. I think what you meant was—I want all of you, even the boring.

I think it was the first time it hit me that I was disposable, that we all were, that we players were on an assembly line of talent, and when we reached the end, it didn’t matter much whether we fell in the trash or not.