I HID OUT IN CELIA’S apartment for a week and a half, in purgatory. Celia and I slept, chastely, side by side in her bed every night. During the day, I stayed in her apartment and read books while she went to work on her new movie for Warner Brothers. We did not kiss. We occasionally lingered a little too long when our arms brushed, when our hands touched, never locking eyes. But in the middle of the night, after we both had appeared to fall asleep, I would feel her body against my back and I would push myself into her, feeling the warmth of her stomach against me, her chin in the crook of my neck. Some mornings I would wake up in a pile of her hair and inhale deeply, trying to breathe in as much of her as I could. I knew that I wanted to kiss her again. I knew that I wanted to touch her. But I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to do or how it was supposed to work. It was easy to think of that one kiss in a dark laundry room as a fluke. It wasn’t even that hard to tell myself that the feelings I had for her were simply platonic. As long as I only indulged my thoughts about Celia sometimes, then I could tell myself it wasn’t real. Homosexuals were misfits. And while I didn’t think that made them bad people—after all, I loved Harry like a brother—I wasn’t ready to be one of them. So I told myself that the spark between Celia and me was just a quirk we had. Which was convincing as long as it remained quirky. Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it. And that is what happened to me one Saturday morning when Celia was in the shower and I was making eggs. There was a knock at the door, and when I opened it, I saw the only face I was happy to see on that side of the threshold. “Hi, Harry,” I said, leaning in to hug him. I was careful not to get my runny spatula on his nice oxford shirt. “Look at you,” he said. “Cooking!” “I know,” I said as I moved out of the way and invited him in. “Hell has frozen over, I guess. Would you like some eggs?”