On Tuesday he wrote, “If we meet and it’s only a film, I’ll live. If I kiss you, I’ll want your skirt up in the dark.” I wrote back from my desk, between two emails that did not matter. “Then don’t kiss me unless you mean the second thing. I get wet from kissing. I’m telling you so you don’t act surprised and ruin it.” He did not act surprised. He wrote, “Midnight. Back row. Wear the skirt.”

I am Leah. I am twenty-six. Sam is twenty-nine, and he works three blocks from the Music Box, which is how a cinema got into a conversation that was already past cinema. We had been writing that version for two weeks. An apartment felt like a decision with a lock. A midnight screening felt like neutral ground. Safe.…