Did she just blow him or not? （She’s not going to admit it.）
She knows perfectly well that’s not love.
She’s surprised he even believes in love.
He doesn’t, not really, but it’s the closest thing to having a name for the concept. It’s like how time only exists within their understanding of what time is, even though time is probably something else entirely. But they still call it time, because that’s what everyone agreed to call it.
How … incredibly theoretical of him.
He is a theoretical mathematician.
Okay, well say there’s no pre-established name for it, what does he feel?
She is asking some very difficult questions.
Good, she doesn’t like easy.
He knows. He likes that.
Oh, so that he likes.
He wants to hold her but he can’t.
He’s holding her right now, see? （He is, loosely.）
Not like that, not physically.
He wants to … mentally hold her?
Kind of. Sure. If she can make sense of that. （She can’t.）
Maybe they should talk about it another time. They have plenty of other times for conversations, he says, and this is when she knows—god, she knows—that she loves him so deeply and so passionately and so devastatingly that by the time she tells him, the words will inevitably feel empty and small.
The first time they argue, she is sure that she loves him.
But she doesn’t tell him so, not really, not yet.
* * *
“COME HOME WITH ME,” he said.
She made a show of glancing around, stretching out languidly to brush the backs of her knuckles across his chest.
“I thought I was already home with you,” she said, and he shook his head.
“Home home.”
“Home home?”
“Home home.”
She considered it. Which was perhaps a thing he should have done first, only it was getting increasingly difficult to do things without her, even in his head. She and his thoughts were inextricably linked now, to the point where even math, which had always been pleasing for being solitary, had become profoundly lonely. There were times when he imagined her there in his classroom, considering him from the back of the room: “Aldo, be patient, explain this, you haven’t explained it.” He saw her in his dissertation meetings, sitting beside him: “Aldo, are you sure?”， with her brow furrowed in thought. “But have you considered this, or this, or this,” things she said to him on a regular basis, like a speed bump to his internal narrative. She was always interrupting, stopping him to say in one way or another, That doesn’t make sense. She always needed to look at things from every angle, turning them upside down, peering through keyholes to find the truth.
The Truth. She seemed to find it only by digging in with an obscene fascination, a close-to-perversity ravaging, no matter the subject. This type of pasta, why? Why this temperature? What happens if you put x here, no it doesn’t work that way, why not? Even sex was a matter of experimentation, try this, Aldo, talk to me like this, no no like this. Regan was always thinking but she called it feeling, and whatever it was, it was rapid and difficult to follow. He felt consistently lost, but he could feel himself changing. He could feel new paths of thought, those previously untraveled for self-preservation （things dismissed for reasons of: not a practical question, impossible, would never work this way） becoming worn beneath his feel. He could feel Regan twining her fingers with his and pulling him along—What about this, have you thought about it this way, Aldo? Aldo, make love to me and answer all my questions, placate me with answers!, with attention!, with your touch. Aldo, fuck me until my mind stands still; plummet with me, euphoric, over the edge of a fucking cliff.
The semester had ended, finally. He’d gone through the next round of oral arguments for his dissertation, had graded all his exams, had dealt with the muttered, “Thanks, Damiani,” from the students who’d narrowly passed, had submitted his end of term evaluations to the Dean. Everything was as it was before, as it had been each semester prior, except for little, subtle differences. The extra helmet he kept strapped to his backpack, just in case. The checking of his phone more often, waiting for her name to appear on his screen. The extra key on the ring, freshly cut and polished, for when she was awake at three in the morning, her voice a hoarse whisper of, “Aldo, you have to see this shade of blue right now, I want you to see it with me; I want to watch you see it for the first time.”
He had never kept much from his father, and Regan was no secret. What is she, your girlfriend? Yes, he supposed so, though it seemed a silly word for her. Well, what was she, then? She’s, I don’t know. What do you mean you don’t know, how can you not know? No, I know, I just don’t think the word exists. Mm well then tell me, where are we in time, Rinaldo? Lost, Dad, lost, I no longer understand what time is, how it works, what it does, I give up. Ah, Masso said, okay, I see what she is. What does that mean Dad, what is she? She’s your … you know, your provocateur, she’s your disturbance. Big words, Dad. Yes, Rinaldo, big words for a big concept, good luck, I love you, see you soon.