xvii.

"I'M ONLY SAYING ," said Ross, who was lounging on two of Fifer's kitchen table chairs, tail twitching in the air, "that doesn't make sense."

"It does so."

"Well, if being asexual was a maladaptive adaptation, then you'd see it disappear from the gene pool entirely. But it seems as if there have been asexual people since, like, always. You can't know about certain people in history, right, but you can infer that it seems likely. And right now, it seems like there's more than ever. Or maybe people are just more comfortable coming out, so it proves that there were this many of us all along. Whatever the case, whether the amount of asexuals is steady or it's increasing, that tends to point towards the idea that there's something advantageous about it from the perspective of natural selection."

She eyed him. "I mean…"

He shrugged. "Just saying. You're not a mutant. You're not defective. There's a good reason for your being the way you are."

"What is it?" she demanded.

"Well, figuring that out is the point," he said, settling his human head against his lion paws. "That's what we're all doing here, you know? That's, like, the reason for everything."

"I don't think the point of life is to spend all your time navel-gazing and trying to determine your purpose."

"No, once you figure it out, then you should just, you know, do it. Whatever your purpose is."

"So, what's your purpose?"

"I mean, I like to think I bring joy and happiness wherever I go."

She rolled her eyes. "You're just making fun of me."

"I would never."

"Anyway, you can't do that."

"Do what?"

"Well, you started making this scientific argument and then—when I questioned you on it—you got all philosophical and woo-woo. That's just a bait and switch. How could being asexual be good for survival of the species? I mean, we don't have to have sex, and sex is necessary for reproduction."

"Yeah, well, lots of asexuals do have sex and do reproduce."

"Okay, but that's not their ideal way to exist."

"Well, like, most people's reproductive reality is not their ideal."

"What do you mean? People fall in love, and when they do, that's their ideal."

"I mean, yeah, people fall in love, but…" He shrugged. "People don't fall in love with their ideal. They fall in love with a person, and people, by definition, are flawed, and it's not ideal."

She considered this. "Do you think that I'm not interested in sex because I can't accept the flawed reality of it?"

"Do you think that?"

"I don't know."

"I guess that could apply to me." He shrugged. "Is it, like, once I get to know a person, and I realize they're never going to live up to this totally unrealistic idea in my head of what love is, that I suddenly become disinterested in fucking them?"

" Is it?" she said.

"No, not really," he said.

She shoved him.

He sat up at the table, propping his face up on his elbows. "I think, you know, part of the thing about being asexual is feeling either as if you don't make any sense or that everyone else doesn't make sense and you're the only one who does? Like, it's just intensity."

"Yeah," she said.

"You could have sex, if you wanted, you know?"

"I don't want to," she said.

"Yeah, but I mean, you could accept that you wouldn't like sex, and decide to do it anyway for some reason."

"Yeah." She nodded. "I could."

"People choose, all the time, not to have the ideal, perfect scenario."

"Should they?"

"Depends on the person and the scenario and everything else."

"I need to talk to Hollis." She groaned.

"Okay?" Ross's eyebrows shot up. "I thought we were never speaking his name ever again."

"Well…" She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm still angry with him, but what if… what if I'm holding him to too high of a standard? Like, he's ancient and ageless and he was in love with me, and he was a jackass to me, but… Should I throw it all away just because he's not perfect?"

"You're really asking the wrong person about this," he said.

"And the relationship wasn't going to be perfect. It was always going to be doomed. But… what? I'm going to die? That's why it's doomed? If that's the reason, every relationship is doomed."

"I hear what you're saying," said Ross, "but also do we have to think this much about, uh, dying?"

She got to her feet. "I'm going to go now. Do you want to come along, or stay here?"

"Come along to your romantic reconciliation? No, thank you."

"I'm not saying it'll be a reconciliation," she said. "I don't know if that's what's going to happen or not."

"I'm not staying here either," said Ross, getting up from the table, stretching, fluttering his wings.

HE WASN'T THERE .

Fifer was kind of stunned, but the place was locked up, and she looked in the windows and saw that it was boxed up and bare inside. Several of his cars were still in the garage, but the Audi was gone.

She got out her phone and texted him. You left.

Nothing in return.

She went by Simple Pleasures, but it was closed up too. Gigi was there, though, coming in off the street. "You're looking for Hollis."

"Did he tell you where he was heading?"

Gigi shook her head. "So, he left town, huh? I wondered."

"He didn't tell you he was leaving." Fifer shoved her hands into her pockets, shaking her head.

"He's not real into the sharing," said Gigi with a shrug. "But I kind of figured when he put in his two weeks. Truth is, I've been keeping this place open as much because of him as anything else. I pay him this salary which he creatively funnels back into the place by buying shit from me. I mean, he was practically keeping the shop profitable single-handedly." She laughed.

"Seriously? I didn't know that."

"Well, it's fine now. I'm going to do fine with just having a piercing business. It'll be easier for me. I will miss him, though."

Fifer walked all the way back home, feeling stunned.

She sat out on her little porch, drinking a White Claw, feeling confused. She tried to think of what he'd told her. He'd mentioned other houses, in other places. She made a list of the cities and towns she knew of, but then, looking at it, she wasn't sure what she was going to do.

She wasn't going to go hunt him down, not really.

She got her phone out.

Maybe he texted back, and she just hadn't heard the notification.

Nothing from him.

She texted him again. It's not cool to go without saying goodbye. You owe me that much.

Three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. He was typing.

She waited.

Goodbye.

Fuck him. She glared at the screen. What if I need to talk to you? What if I have things I need to say to you? What if I need closure?

Her phone started ringing.

It was him.

She picked up. "Hey."

"I'm not good at this," he said.

"You ran away," she said.

"I'm… not used to hurting like this," he muttered.

"Hollis…" She sighed. "I'm hurt, too, you know."

"I do. Probably worse than me," he said. "Probably… I thought about it, all right? I'm not any good for you. We both knew that from the very beginning, didn't we?"

"Just because it's doomed doesn't mean—"

"It's not just the end that's the problem, though, it's the middle. I'm not mortal. I'm not like you. And I do… want to use you. I want to taste you. I want to take advantage. I'm not a good guy."

"You're not a bad guy, though."

"I fucked up with you," he said. "And I've been thinking about what you said. About mortality and about things mattering and all of that. I mean, you're right. I don't want to pull you into this endless, awful life that I live. And you were pretty adamant you don't want it either."

"I don't," she said. "But just because I don't want to live forever doesn't mean we can't be together. We could still do it."

"What do you mean?" he said.

"I mean, I spend the rest of my life with you. And I know you live on after me, but that's all right with me. Because that's who you are. And I want you to be you because I love you."

"Shit."

"I want to have babies, though. Maybe Ross's babies. Except he and I will never be together like that, so it would, like, I don't know… would you even want to be part of—"

"I can't."

"Oh," she said softly.

"No, I can't watch you die," he said.

"But I'm going to die, and you know that, and you—"

"I wouldn't let you die. I'd steal your skin and do it again."

"You said it was a one-time thing, putting it in Faerie like that!"

"I'm a pretty good liar."

She let out a noise of horrified disbelief. "What else have you lied about?"

"Nothing," he said. "I don't think, anyway."

She was speechless.

"See? This is why. No, the only way this could ever work out is if I could die too."

"What?" she said.

"You know, if I could grow old with you."

"Which you can't do."

"No." He sighed. "So, it can't work out. And I figured it would be easier for both of us if it was a clean break."

"Well, what if I don't want a clean break? What if I tell you to come back, come back to Shepherdstown? What if I say I can't stand another open mic without you playing?"

"You can stand it," he said. "Look, Fifer, I'll love you forever. Know that."

"Promise you're not just going to ignore me if I text you again."

He let out a breath. "It hurts when you text me."

"I know, but ignoring the pain isn't how you get past it. You have to get through it. Which means you have to feel it."

"I promise," he said.

SO, THEN HE was gone.

The next day, she spent most of it in bed, sobbing the whole time, face down in her pillows, angry and feeling lost.

The day after that, she wrote a song. She'd never written a song about a breakup before, but it came out pretty nicely if she did say so herself.

The day after that she wrote two songs.

They came pretty regularly for a week or two. She had that album before she knew it.

And then it came down to deciding what to do about touring. She had neither Hollis nor the tour bus he'd offhandedly spoken about giving her. And she still hated touring.

But she wanted to play these songs live. She wanted to go to places where she'd gone before on her tours. She wished there was some way to make it better.

She'd been texting with Hollis. Weirdly, she'd even been sending him versions of the songs she'd written about him while she was writing them. Maybe she just wanted his blessing for using the pain to make art and then for turning that art into a commodity to be sold.

He seemed to like hearing them, though. She thought that they were helping him work through it all, too.

Anyway, he offered to buy her a tour bus again, and she wondered if she should take him up on it.

Then he typed, It's too bad you can't just go on short mini-tours so that you can go home and rest often.

Well, why hadn't she ever thought of that?

So, she booked the tour. It wasn't one long concentrated tour, her on the road for months on end. Instead, it was her on the road for two weeks and then home for two weeks and then back out for a week and a half and then home for a month.

It was kind of perfect, actually.

When she told Hollis what she was doing, he was happy for her.

Where are you? You ever going to tell me? Will I come close to you on my tour?

So, then, he told her, and she wasn't planning on going anywhere near there on her tour.

Except, now, with a renewed intent, she started looking for gigs to book near his city.

When she found one, she told him she'd be in his neck of the woods. I want to see you.

It had been months now, months since he'd left. It was nearly summer. The winter breezes had faded away for the breath of warmth and flowers on trees and new green leaves.

All right. Actually, I may have something to talk to you about when I see you.

What?

It might be nothing. Probably shouldn't have mentioned it.