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Matt wanted me. It was obvious. He took Tina as a consolation prize, but somewhere along the way he knew he wanted me. He couldn’t just leave this alone. He couldn’t let me be. He was going to keep worrying it like the dogs at the shelter gnawed after their frozen Kongs. Difference was that they eventually get their peanut butter. Him, he got nothing.

Finally, I was sure of it.

There were so many things I could say and none that I wanted to hear come out of my mouth, so many ways that I guessed I could feel and none that I really did.

“It’s not creepy,” I said. “I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have, I don’t know, told me that you were coming. I seriously about peed myself.”

He came close, too close. “Want me to check?”

There it was: feeling two things at the same time. Yes, Daniel Tiger, that was okay. But it sure came off as weird. In this case, I was both grossed out and a little turned on.

“You just keep turning up,” I said. “Everywhere I look.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

His hand on mine, rubbing, rubbing. His eyes locked on my face. His heart beating so loudly I could practically hear it. I knew it.

I knew him. I loved him. So why couldn’t I just let go and give in to what he wanted?

Because I didn’t want it.

Matt was that mirage we studied in geography, something born not of reality but of a wish. It’s the vision of a person as a vessel, a container filled with one’s own hopes and fantasies. Chase the vessel and you chase a mirage. Cross that desert and drink from an empty golden cup.

We can’t touch a mirage. We can only follow it until we die of thirst.