Everybody needs somebody

What I see in Chloe, Henry sees through me just by holding my hand over a restaurant table. To him I'm a book with an obvious ending, a Tom Clancy novel with one-dimensional characters and a simple plot for the masses. I wish I weren't so I tell him stories that aren't true about my past, about Los Angeles, about my father.

"He was a writer" I say, unconvincingly. He picks through his lamb chops, the light from the candles makes his skin look like pinkish rose petals. "What did he write about" he asks without making eye contact, I lie again and maybe he knows it.

We walk back through Washington Square Park, he stops me beneath the arch and holds me in his arms until I forget how cold it is. "Nothing is forever" he says, just like that. Fifth Avenue looks like an open wound over his shoulder and I wish I could believe he was wrong.