When we finally separate, her eyes are dreamy, her lips red. I run my thumb over her swollen bottom lip, unable to stand the fact that this is the last time I’ll be able to do this.

Without stopping to think, I say, “What if we tried again?”

She blinks several times, her brow wrinkling. “You think we can finally have a proper one-night stand if we try one more time?”

I huff out a soundless laugh. “Third time’s a charm.”

“But you—I—we …”

“I think there are things we both could work on. Why not try it together?” I hold my breath and wait for her to answer.

She concentrates on tracing the MLA graphic on my T-shirt with her fingertip as she says, “I don’t think I can do … the things you wanted.”

“Maybe we can figure out another way, meet in the middle somehow.”

“Do you have any ideas?” she asks.

“Not yet,” I admit. The thought of fucking her while she lies there, wishing for it to be over, puts a bitter taste in my mouth, but there has to be another way, something else we can do. We can’t be the first people in history to have this kind of problem.

“Okay,” she says, squaring her shoulders as a determined glint enters her eyes. “Let’s try it one more time.”

I don’t attempt to stop myself from smiling. “Okay.”

“Next weekend?” she asks.

“That works.”

“Are we completely ridiculous?”

“Maybe,” I say with a laugh.

She laughs along with me, and for a moment, we stand there in each other’s arms, just looking at one another.

Eventually, I pull away. “I’m going to head out, but we should text and decide on next weekend.”

“Sure.” She flashes a smile at me. “Bye, Quan.”

Giving her one last, quick kiss on the lips, I say, “Bye, Anna.”

Then I leave, and she shuts the door behind me. As I walk to my car, I brainstorm different ways we can approach our intimacy problems. Nothing seems quite right, but I think we’ll get there.

TWELVE

Anna

“HOW HAVE YOU BEEN, ANNA?” JENNIFER ANISTON ASKS. TODAY, she’s wearing a loose dress with Aztec designs and leather sandals that loop around her big toes and ankles.

The usual answer slips from my lips. “The same.” But then I hesitate. “Well, not entirely.” A lot has happened in the weeks since our last appointment.

Her eyes spark with interest. “How so?”

“My boyfriend decided he wanted to have an open relationship.”

She opens her mouth to reply, but it takes a second before she actually speaks. “There’s a lot to unpack there.”

“Yeah.” I smile awkwardly and look down at my hands, which are clasped together in my lap as usual.

“How do you feel about it?” she asks.

I hesitate to answer, examining her face as I try to determine what her opinion is on the matter.

“How do you feel, Anna,” she says softly. “Not me. What I think isn’t important.”

I push a long breath out through my mouth. “You say that, but you’re not a stranger I’m meeting for a one-night stand. You’re someone I’ll be seeing on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. If you don’t like me, that makes things difficult for me.”

“Well, I do like you,” she says with a kind yet amused smile, “and I have no interest in judging you, only helping you. So tell me what happened. Are you in an open relationship now? Since you mentioned it, do you want to tell me if you had a one-night stand?”

“We are in an open relationship now,” I say. “I’m certain he’s seeing other people.”

The corners of her mouth droop downward, and her eyes darken with understanding. “That’s got to be hard to accept.”

“It was. I cried when I found out. But then I immediately arranged to have a one-night stand with someone from a dating app.” I sit straighter, trying to make myself look bold and indifferent, but my muscles tighten as I brace myself for her condemnation.

“I might have done the same thing, in your shoes,” she says. “How did it go?”

At her casual acceptance of my attempt at revenge sex, my stomach muscles loosen a notch. Still, I struggle to describe my time with Quan. He’s been on my mind nonstop, what we did—and didn’t do—and I’ve been restless and extra absentminded all week. This morning, I forgot I’d left my contacts in last night, and I stuck in another pair. I thought I was going blind for an entire hour before I realized what I’d done.

“It wasn’t a success,” I say finally. “We didn’t … you know.”

Jennifer gives me a commiserating look. “That happens. But that’s the nice thing about one-night stands. If they don’t go well, you just brush them off and keep on with your life.”

I nod in agreement. “That’s what I had in mind. I thought a lot about what you said last time about masking, people pleasing, and worrying too much about what others think. I hoped that I could use the time during a one-night stand to experiment.”

“That’s such an interesting approach. Did it work?” Jennifer asks.

“A little, but I was so nervous for most of the time that I couldn’t think clearly. And then in the end, it was just …” I shake my head. “People are—they’re so confusing. Sometimes, if I think about things long enough and hard enough, I can understand them. But other times, no matter how hard I try, it’s impossible.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually,” Jennifer says, and there’s an expression on her face that I haven’t seen before. I can’t read it.

She gets up and goes to the desk on the other side of the room to sift through one of the big drawers. She extracts a thick manila folder, which she hands to me before sitting back down in the chair across from me.

“This is for you,” she says. “Go on and take a look.”

Feeling strange, I open the folder. There’s a paperback on top of a stack of printouts held together with various staples and a large paper clip. I run my fingertips over the book’s title, Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome, and give her a questioning look.

“I recommend you read that book in your free time,” she says. “It’s not a comprehensive source by any means, but I do think parts of it will speak to you.”

“Okay. I’ll read it,” I say, though I’m still not sure why she wants me to read it. I mean, there’s one obvious reason, but I discount that immediately. There has to be another reason.

Because I’m curious, I set the book aside and inspect the printouts. In bold print, the top sheet reads “Understanding Your Autism.” Various sentences and bullet points have been highlighted in yellow, but when I read them, I don’t understand their meaning. All I can think about is the title.

“Based on what you’ve told me about your current issues and childhood, and what I’ve personally seen over the past months with you, it’s my opinion that you’re on the autism spectrum, Anna,” Jennifer says.