This has been an aching cavern in my chest for eighteen months, as he slowly drifted away with the first throes of his first committed relationship, and a life in the city that didn’t include me. I’ve been losing him slowly and surely, and it’s contributed in part to why I started dating so many men. I was trying to find someone for me, someone that would care about me as much as he always did. I want someone to make me feel the way he does when he’s around: safe, loved, and secure. Like I’m home.

“That’s not true.” Arrick makes to pull me back to him, but I...