“But we have to act as if it were true,” Jesse said. “So we have to pretend,” Jenn said.

Jesse sipped his drink. “I guess,” Jesse said.

They were quiet. She held his hand. They were sitting so close that her shoulder brushed his. He could feel her hair touch his cheek.

“You know,” Jenn said. “There’s something very odd about you and me.”

“There’s a lot odd about you and me, Jenn. We are a fucking mess.”

“We are,” she said. “A bad fucking mess. Me maybe more than you.”

“There’s enough to go around,” Jesse said.

“But the odd thing,” Jenn said, “is that in some weird way it sort of proves that love is real.”

“It does?”

“We have every reason to be apart, and absolutely no reason to be together,” Jenn said.

“I know.”

“And here we are,” Jenn said.

“For the moment,” Jesse said.

“Why are we here?” Jenn said. “Together, after everything?”

Jesse tilted his head back and closed his eyes and breathed. His lungs seemed to have expanded since Jenn arrived. He seemed to breathe more deeply.

“I love you,” he said. “And you love me.”

“What else could it be?” Jenn said.

“Obsession?” Jesse said.

“Love,” Jenn said. “Obsessive, dishonest, self-absorbed, whatever is wrong with it, and a lot is wrong, we love each other.”

Jesse nodded.

“You know I love you,” Jenn said.

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I know you do.”

“And I know you love me,” Jenn said.

“Yes,” Jesse said, “I do.”

They were quiet for a while. The lights across the harbor on Paradise Neck were going out. The harbor boat was almost to shore. There was no sound except the movement of the water against the seawall below them. The only light on the deck was from the dim overhead in the living room behind them.

“We love each other and we can’t make it work,” Jenn said.

“Yet,” Jesse said.

“What’s wrong with us,” Jenn said. “What is wrong with us?”

They sat quietly, watching the harbor boat’s slow progress. Jesse shook his head. The harbor boat had bumped up against the float at the town wharf and turned its running lights off.

“A lot,” he said, “and I don’t know what it is, or how to fix it.”

She nodded slowly with her head against his shoulder.

“But I guess we’re in it together,” Jesse said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m pretty sure we are.”

Both their drinks sat half-finished on the table, diluting as the ice melted while they sat in the near darkness, holding hands and not talking, for a long time before they went to bed

•  •  •