There would be housemates if she left, she thought, staring at the white ceiling, her body spread out across the jagged diamonds. It wasn’t that she didn’t like housemates categorically, although over the years some did cause her a great deal of trouble. What bothered her was the fact that she was young then, but she wasn’t now. Youth and housemates seemed appropriate to one another. But she was nearly thirty-seven, her birthday just months away, and at this new age it did not seem right to live with adults you were not sleeping with. Sleeping in the same bed, she meant, of course, because although Mark and she shared the same bed, of course they hadn’t slept together in ages. That was the problem. Or the symptom. Was it the problem or they symptom? She didn’t know.

In this regard she supposed she already had a housemate. The central difference being that an actual housemate would have their own bed, preferably in their own room. It was true that other than a shared bed, the odd kiss hello or goodbye, a hand every so often placed upon her knee, Mark and a housemate could easily be confused. Which made her think, alternatively: perhaps having a housemate at age 37 would not be so bad after all.

He was not the kind who caused a great deal of trouble; he was a lovely housemate. He was pleasant and tidy. It was true he sometimes left the clean dishes in the dish tray for too long and that his disheveled office resembled a college dorm room, even the odor. Which admittedly was as endearing as annoying. And she knew it was only fair she put away the dishes, since he so often washed them, and that he should have a space of his own that he kept however he pleased. She rarely entered his office, anyway.

Mark was so pleasant and tidy, so discreet and quiet, that she sometimes felt alone in the apartment. But she knew he was there, and she knew he always thought of her. There were clues. For instance: from his less-than-tidy office he often forwarded her links to interesting online articles and reviews of music and TV shows. A spread featuring LCD Soundsystem or a review of the new Wild Beasts album, a YouTube video parodying The Wire, or a feature on Bruce Springsteen.

Each week he set aside the New York Times Sunday Review and the New Yorker for her on the dining room table, dog-earing the pages so she would know which stories she ought to read. In these tasks he was incredibly discriminating, always finding the articles he knew she would enjoy, the precise information she would find interesting, weeding out all the rest. He knew her so well, how she became overwhelmed by the pages, the abundance; the choice. It was too much to decide to read this over that. Without him, she it was very likely she would not read the New Yorker or Sunday Review at all.

She knew he was there. There were always traces. The rugs and floors clean, the clothes folded, or the refrigerator full. Dog eared pages.

Somehow, still, she felt alone in the apartment. Perhaps it was because he so often changed course just to suit her. And literally, so that she moved throughout their home without any obstruction whatsoever. It seemed nothing was ever in her way. He accommodated her in every way. Which was quite liberating, of course. Yet she often found herself wishing that something, someone—he—might block her way every now and again, that something in the world would stop her, so she might know where she ended and everything else began.

With nothing to bump into, the world felt amorphous, immersive; a permeable thing.