Page 133 of Experiments in Offline Dating

She tilted her head. “Like three individual sticks or three packages?”

My pout deepened. “Packages.”

“So . . . six. Six Kinder Buenos.”

“Is that bad?”

“Real bad.”

(See fig. 7).

Simone went on without mercy. “How many times have you watched Leap Year this month?”

“Ten? Twelve?”

“Okaaaaay. So the prognosis is not good. Time to stop lying to yourself.”

“Love?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit! What? This feels . . . this feels horrible! Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“What! Why would anyone want this? It’s just awful! All the time! This is worse than that time I got a yeast infection, BV, and a UTI all at the same time!”

“Who knew that was even medically possible? We should do a show about that!”

“Shut up and tell me how to fix it, Simone!”

“Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, right? You go on like a billion dates a year.”

“No, it was not bound to happen! Not me, remember? I can only get emotional about fictional men.”

“Well, Tadhg sounds like he’s like a shadow daddy on the outside and a cinnamon bun on the inside. No wonder he finally broke you.”

“Ugggh. Will it go away?”

“Maybe. Do you want it to?”

“Who knows! I don’t freakin’ know what I want! I’m so muddled up, I hardly even feel like the same damn person anymore. I feel trapped. Like my skin is too fucking tight. Like I can’t just go on with my life as it was and pretend this never happened.”

“I don’t think you can, sweetie.”

Simone didn’t often use terms of endearment other than “asshole” and “hobag,” so I knew this was bad.

“So, what? I just live like this? Forever?”

“Well. Do you want to see him again?”

“Only every day for the rest of my goddamn life.”

Her eyes widened. “Okay, Maya, that’s definitely not nothing.”

“But where does that get me? Nowhere. I can’t do anything with that!”

“Why don’t we just . . . you know, explore that a little . . . for hypotheticals.”