"What's the word for being devastated and incredibly happy at the same time?"

Izzy asks me that one hot afternoon as we lay exhausted and tangled up in sweaty sheets on her bed. I'm naked. She's wearing my favorite black t-shirt. It's always like that: her covering up. The first time I was startled. She has an interesting little idiosyncrasy of getting up and getting dressed as soon as we're done. No dwelling. No hesitation. No explanation. Just hop up, pee, and get dressed.

I didn't mind after a while. She was quick to take off her clothes when she felt like it, which was pretty often. And I figured a few quirks –- we all have them –- was more than made up for with her primal vibe. She shook the world.

Her beauty drew me in. Her unpredictability made me stay.

That two-sided quirkiness -- that duality about her -- in anyone else would have been a reason to go. Call it quits. Run away. And fast.

She could be intensely close; then instantly distant. She would ask existential questions one minute; then talk about what she was going to name her floppy cat the next. She could be bold and provocative and profane; then instantly shy. She was not only the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen; she was the most intriguing. I desired every bit of her.

Just our fingertips are touching. That's enough sometimes.

I reach across her and pick up a sheet of notepaper that's filled on both sides with blue handwriting. I had folded and unfolded that piece of paper hundreds of times, and the creases are becoming so thin I fear the paper will rip and I'll lose a section. 

And so, I read. I read the words written on the notebook page every day –- sometimes several times a day –- as a meditation. As a novena. As a prayer. It's my most treasured possession. (Well, Isabel is, but I can’t call her a possession, because it would be like saying you own a cat. Cats grace us with their presence. Isabel does, too.)

We've been together for just a few months. A few fragmented, Roman-candle-burning-hot months. It hasn't been easy. A stolen kiss here. A silent coupling there. And a repressed acknowledgement that every single time might very well be our last time. We're both moving, filled with wanderlust. And we know we're not heading to the same place.

Saudade.

That's what I think as I hold the gossamer paper in my hands. I learned that word when I lived in Portugal with another girl. Someone long gone. Someone Isabel can't stop asking about.

That word is about a pain so deep it can't be isolated. Or healed. A thirst that can't be slaked. A nostalgic longing for a love who isn't there. And I think about what saudade really means: it's a longing for a love that might never return. 

"Saudade," I say. "It's Portuguese for missing someone." 

That translation was close enough. Izzy has no patience for extra information. Or subtlety. One sentence too many and she goes off into another place.

"I don't know the word for being devastated and incredibly happy at the same time. What part are you feeling right now?"

"Both," she says. "I'm devastated and incredibly happy."

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm the happiest I've ever been. I'll save devastated for later when you're gone."

And that was the switch.

Izzy rolls on her side, facing away from me. Slides a ponytail holder from her hair and hugs her knees.

I'm getting used to this moment. Afterwards, and especially if our coupling was particularly intense, she disappears inside her head. If I talk, she clips her answers. Offers nothing. And makes it clear she wants her own time. I've learned to wait.

And so, I wait. And wait. And wait. 

I can't resist a glance at her from behind, even during the rejection. I catalog this scene in my mind for later: The smooth apple curve of her ass. The deep and symmetrical dimples of Venus. The tightness of her waist. The thigh gap that's evident even when she's lying down. The sheen of her hair. 

I'm getting turned on again and it's starting to show. But I know enough to leave her to her thoughts. To let her curl up until she doesn't want to curl up anymore. Because there's always another moment. People talk about bottling up a moment in time or preserving a thought in amber: this is mine.

While I wait for the sun to shine again, I thumb the notepaper.

I feel the fuzziness of the note's edges. Consider the blue pen she used. Where she sat when she wrote it. Her stylized handwriting, where the letter "a" resembles a "2." How the descenders on the "g" and "y" drop down almost two lines. The backward slant of the letters –- like she's a left-hander who writes with her right hand. 

It's the handwriting of an artist. 

...Somewhere in time and space a girl is waiting on a corner in Soho. Every stardust-filled breath bringing her closer to him. The one. And so, she waits.

And so, I wait. And wonder about her. How finding that story stuck in the pages of a book I examined in the New York Public Library archive room led me to her. How random life can be, filled with microtomed slices of coincidences, that, if compiled, make the difference between a love story and no story whatsoever.

I lie here and think about her question. Devastation and happiness. And wonder about how I ever met her. And deep down I wonder if I wish I never had. 

There is, after all, another kind of love -- a much darker and sadder kind of love. It's the love you feel when you love someone you can never and will never have. It's the kind of love that doesn't signal the beginning of something beautiful, but rather the end of something that might have been beautiful but will never amount to anything more than what it is.

I feel happy. Incredibly happy.

She feels empty. 

"You have to go," she says. She's talking into her pillow.

"Not yet. I have a couple more hours before I have to go." I flop over on my back. My cock is at half-mast and rising. 

"I mean, you have to go," she says. "I'm not asking if you have to go. I'll telling you it's time to go." This time she rolls over and squints her eyes. Her I mean it look.

"What did I do?"

I'm self-conscious about my boner. I put my hand over myself. Shake my head at her. I've seen this before, but I've never gotten used to this part.

"Nothing. But it's time for you to go," Izzy says.

And just like that, I'm dismissed. Transposed from one side of her Gemini mind to the other. There's an exciting side of temperamental people, and there's a goddam frustrating side. This is the goddam frustrating side. 

Izzy hops up and pulls on her yoga pants. Puts her hair back in a ponytail once again. Does this all in one smooth move, like a gymnast who practiced this routine a thousand times. In a way, I'm afraid she has. And I don't wanna know.

"Really?"

I'm not moving. Not yet. I've learned to wait -- to see if the storm will blow over. If it's lightning bolts or just thunder.

She stands in the corner by the far side of the bed. Moves her head to the side and raises her chin as she glances at the door. Her dismissal. Her signal it's time for me to leave.

I roll from the bed where we had just made a tangled mess a few minutes before. Stand there for a second and then feel absurd. Like an idiot. Like a little kid. 

I find my boxers at my feet and start to pull them on a little too quickly, nearly toppling over in my rush to get the fuck out of there. I feel all the more foolish for that. Foolish. And angry.

"Where are my socks?" I mutter. "Where are my goddam socks?" This time a lot louder. No more muttering.

I tug at the bedspread. Yank the covers. Huff. Pull on my shirt without buttoning it. Snap my belt in place. Slide on my shoes without bothering to tie them.

"Where's this going?

Sweat is dripping from my hair. It's burning my eyes. My voice is catching and I'm about to cry. I can hear myself breathing in short bursts.

"I don't know," she says. "You made choices. I made choices. In a way our lives are like a choose-your-own ending book, whether we choose to accept that or not."

"What the hell does that mean?" I say. "One second I'm all wrapped up in you, and then the next second you want me gone? How is that possible?"

I feel frantic. If I had asthma, this is when I would need my inhaler. Bad. My breath is coming in gasps and I'm doing everything I can not to cry. My arms are shaking. 

I feel sick.

She just stares at me. And I look down. I can't win.

I go and take a long, hard piss. I rifle through her bag full of makeup and hair products and discarded bras. And wonder what she’s doing next. Where she's going. Why she wants me gone. 

I walk back into the bedroom on stiff legs. Isabel is still standing where she was before I took a piss.

"I choose not to go," I say. "I'm never leaving."

"Good." Her smile is back. That crinkle at the corner of her eyes is there. There's a pulsing in her neck.

She slides her panties down, exposing herself. Snaps off her bra and throws it at me. Then she folds the covers back. Jumps in the messy bed. Lies back. She pulls her legs back slowly. Separating them.

"Tell me something I don't know about you."