I press my fingers against the pendant of the necklace, "I'm sorry, I just don't think it's a good time."

It's not what he wanted to hear, I'm guessing. We clean up after dinner, and I try to justify myself o him. Agents can date, but we wouldn't be able to be in the field together. They'd move me over to Strauss, and nobody wants to work for her, least of all me. While it's not certain, I like my job right now.

"I don't think you like your job," he says finally. We've just sat down to finish as much of the puzzle as we can and he's wearing his blindfold again. His fingers strum the puzzle pieces, playing them and me like a guitar. "You don't really believe in profiling, if you're honest."

I close my eyes, "I'm not going to deny that you do important work."

"But you have different work you'd rather do," Spencer picks up a piece and slots it into place. "You like the data collection and running statistical analyses. Maybe you should take up Estelle and apply to Georgetown."

Then, I remember that last month I applied to three PhD programmes. I should be hearing back soon enough about them. It makes me feel sick. All of them were far away, abroad, and I wouldn't take them. At least, I should consider Georgetown and a few others. Maybe I could do one near where Caro used to live, in case she and Cletus decide not to stay in Texas. At the very least, I can drag Bastien out of the city.

"I do like my job."

His head twists toward me, and if he weren't blindfolded, I would cover my face, as if there is some food left on it.

"It's okay that you don't," Spencer whispers.

I rub my eyes. Now, I don't want to talk anymore. I half-heartedly slot a few pieces into place, and eventually Spencer and I head to his bed. We lie next to each other. Stéphane has texted, suggested that sometime soon we get together. He asks if I've been in touch with Bastien and in capital letters he writes NOT CO-PARENTING. I just shut my phone off.

An hour passes, and another, and I'm not the least bit tired. My brain lags and I want to shut my eyes tightly, just close them and doze off somewhere else, somewhere much farther away from me than I am now. I want a plane even though, as Spencer has pointed out, I am terrified of flying, maybe even more than I am terrified of leaving again.

I check my phone. It's nearing one in the morning.

"We could just tell one of them, to ask for advice," Reid whispers.

"What advice?" I swallow. My mouth is dry. I didn't realize he was still awake. "We both know it's not forbidden, just not encouraged. I don't want to work with Strauss, and I can't afford to just up and quit and do a PhD."

"You could sell the condo," Reid whispers. "I know the market isn't great right now, but with your renovations you'd make money off it at least."

"It's not even the PhD fees," I point out. "I wouldn't have anywhere to live."

"You could live here."

I roll over to face him. He's looking at me, a gaze wet and wandering. And I know he means it; not some spur of the moment question to win an argument. An offer, an invitation, a vow. I could live here, and he'd let me. He's bought me a puzzle board and given me space for things in my drawer.

"We haven't been together that long."

Spencer blinks, "when you remember everything, time feels slower, I think. I wouldn't know for certain, but every second of you has been eternity. Agonizing, at first, when you hated me. Sometimes it still feels that way. Every time you avoid my eyes, it feels like all of infinity passes before you look at me again."

I don't break his gaze. My chest rises and falls. Every part of me wants to look away, but now he's raised me a challenge. Hold him tightly. Just the way he holds me.

"It's been eight months," I tell him. "Only eight."

"Which would be different if I didn't know who I was, or if I didn't know who you were," he swallows. "But we're almost thirty now."

In bed, I pull myself upright. That, I can't handle. He doesn't know me. He doesn't. Maybe he knows what I look like, and who my brothers are, but we are nothing but what has happened to us. Without May, I am not Cole Bouchard. I am Colette Morel and I am nearly half my age. It happened almost half my life ago. It has been most of my memories, and he doesn't know it. And I can't tell him. No matter how much I could try. If you'd tell me I couldn't stop talking until I told him, I would lose my voice. I would speak until I died, until the universe ended, I would say words until my tongue ached and until the air became sawdust on my lips. He doesn't know me.

"Colette," he begins.

"I..." I shake my head. "I got a text from Stéphane. I have to call him."

Spencer doesn't chase me. I wind throw on my shoes without socks and sit down on the stoop leading up to his building. If I were more French I'd spoke a cigarette.

Why does the same thing keep happening to me? I didn't think it would be like this, adulthood. When you're a kid, nothing is monotonous. Eventually though, I came to realize I would always need to do laundry. Unless I did laundry stark naked, I would never have all of my clothes clean at once. I'd need to plan what to eat for dinner forever. Your parents take care of those things when you are young. Now, I keep sitting outside or standing on balconies late at night, not smoking cigarettes.

Fuck it, might as well change things. I call a cab.

Halfway home, I text Spencer that it's a Bastien thing and that I won't be back. He doesn't reply, and I hope he's sleeping. I try not to cry in the cab. It works, but then as soon as the door is open, before I've even paid the guy, I'm sobbing in the parking lot of my building.

My face is drenched when I get in the building, my body shaking with silent sobs. In my condo, I duck into my bedroom. I let out a sob, and the sheets move. Bastien is in bed. It was too dark to even notice him.

He jumps up before I can hush him. He yanks me closer to him and his fingers are tight on my shoulders.

"What did he do to you?" Bastien says. "I'll kill him."

I shake my head and breathe in deeply once, "I can't tell him, Bastien."

"Tell him? Tell him what?" Bastien pulls me over until I'm sitting on my unmade bed.

"What, what Hr did," I hiccup, then wipe my eyes. "I can't talk about May."

Bastien lets go of me. I collapse in the bed, curling my knees up. My head begins to pinch, the pressure of crying getting to me. Bastien slips out of the room. Am I drunk? It was just the one martini, but I'm worried that this is all beyond my control. I need to stop drinking and stop dating someone that I can't give myself too. He is right. It's been eight months. We've been together nearly a gestational period, and I can imagine a life with him, but not my life. Not the one with all the moments that brought me here.

My head hurts even worse. I sit up, wiping my face. I didn't notice that Bastien slipped from the room, but he was gone at some point.

Finally, Bastien returns. He's got two mugs. He passes one to me. I sip, disappointed to discover it is a peppermint tea. I wipe the snot from my face. Bastien takes a spot at my desk. He fiddles with a pen, spinning in the chair absentmindedly.

"What?" I finally ask.

He shrugs, "I don't get why it's a problem that you can't talk about it."

The fact that he thinks that makes it even worse, somehow. Then, I get it. The meanest thing I could possibly say, btu the only thing that can convince him.

"If I can't talk about it, that's weak," I say. "It shows that it bothers me. And I'm supposed to be over it by now."

"No you're not."

"Not weak or not supposed to be over it?"

The chair grinds to a halt, the inner mechanism clicking as Bastien stops moving.

"Not supposed to be over it."

~~~~~

And on to one of the biggest cockups of the century. It's fine, right? Definitely not.