After some time, desire becomes painful to hold. It twists inside you, like roots encircling the interior of a too-small pot. 

With that thought in mind, I decided to transplant my bromeliad. I felt too sorry to hack it to pieces, even when it was the cause and effect of its own misery, so I gave in and supplied it with a larger vessel. It was now in a little improvised planter that I'd cut out of a perfectly good tea tin, and sat across from my daybed on the exposed ledge of the window. I would need to put my contacts and bamboo toiletries somewhere else. 

On that night, my sharp little companion looked very well: framed by a square of clear indigo sky, with brilliant pinpricks of white light floating about its crown like too-distant fireworks. Colorless fireworks, I guess, because they were so far away. 

A plant might look pretty self-satisfied at any given time, but even on a good day, it can only watch life happen to others...seemed unfair. 

My eyelids fell heavily, merging into the swollen flesh below. If I were inclined to take lessons from nature, I would have known that nothing could come of thinking about him all the time.

I had no second match to light. So why did I strike the first one so hard? The presumed fact of his occupation had been the only thing I knew about Jo. Shit. 

Were people - fully developed people, emotionally uncompromised adults - likely to simply hand you additional chances to set them on fire? I looked down at my toes, and pouted to myself. At the very least, I felt sure that Mr. Lazenby would not. 

It occurred to me as I laid in the unformed darkness of my room, prone and far too rigid, that I knew so little. Not just about Jo, but everyone. 

Take for example the scintillating personality that was my benefactor, the one to whom I owed entirely my tiny sanctum above the café. A dyed-in-the-wool extrovert, brilliant, famously direct - I knew nothing about her. 

Here is a list of all of the things that I knew about Amelia's background at this point in the story. I knew that Amelia Kaye-Fine (not her real name) was a superlative self-taught baker and fry cook, who was unfortunate enough to be born without the least bit of financial savvy in our current American epoch. A resident of "sad, landlocked Pittsburgh", she'd dreamed of running a seaside shoppe with two p's, ever since she was old enough to understand the proper use of a whisk. At the precise moment of her landing in the downtown waterfront, the man we call Bullwinkle - who had no discernible interest in baking, but who did have a large net worth and an estranged gay son somewhere in the Greater Boston area - stepped in like a vision to finance her dream. He came from a place even further than Pittsburgh, though judging by accent, not that far afield. The café and souvenir shop, one entity, was called Baby Donuts. It was supposed to be about Amelia and her partner. Amelia's partner was not Bullwinkle. That had been the approximate configuration of things when I came along. And this was genuinely all I knew.

...Did that sound like a plausible brand narrative, much less the true history of a person? To take just one example, how would Amelia have met her discount Daddy Warbucks at her exact moment of need? What would they have even talked about? Amelia and Bullwinkle wouldn't even have bought a dozen eggs from the same store. 

Maybe it really was a fairy story to placate a small child, but I expressed no apprehension about it during our interview, only nodded and smiled toothlessly...what a useful idiot I must have seemed. And I certainly did live up to the promise, two months on without a formal paycheque. 

Amelia picked wisely when she chose me as her seasonal help. I was raised with the value of: I see people withholding their secrets, and I let them lie. In fact I'm pretty sure I'd never asked either of them anything personal since that egregious first story. Not about themselves and certainly not what they must have thought of me, I swear it would have killed me. Yes - at this point in my young life, the poor opinion of a couple of likely charlatans would have instantly killed me. 

Probably because everyone around me was an adult, and I just played at being one. It became something like, my signature trick? Ever since I arrived in this city with my designer denim backpack, a sling full of plastic and a pair of work-ready heels I'd purchased right out of the subway. 

I wheedled in front of prospective employers and hugged my belongings close. I missed my grandparents' furniture and worried about the state of my teeth. As a newly liberated person, I felt so damned fake. But never...never more than I did now. 

For Jo was that most formidable of adults - a refined, worldly, self-made man. My ideal. 

Around and around and around. The longer I went without another conversation with him, the more wigged out I became. 

Was this desire? Was it? What the hell was so great about it?

Any outcome was impossible, really. If he woke up and decided to look at me someday, to really see me...I wouldn't even know where I'd want it to lead.

My thoughts and eyes were starting to criss-cross. It was a work day - a Saturday - and the downstairs was beginning to stir. I stared at the edge of my daybed, until the grain pattern of the floor became fuzzy - until I could see shadows crawling against my arm, the arms of the bromeliad against mine - and the fact of the sun rising became undeniable. And then, just as I did every day, I threw myself out.