My ex squeezes my hand as the entrees are served, and I’m reminded that this is the first and last time we’ve gone out on a real date. The kind of date where we both wear dresses and heels and she holds my hand like I’m her girlfriend, like we’ve been living together, even though these had both been true for enough years to fill a fist. She kisses me without whispering her worries, without looking at herself through the uneasy blue eyes of the other patrons in the restaurant. I wonder what kind of woman they see when they look at me. I wish I could be the Woman I know I could be.

My ex has ordered a $40 plate of lobster ravioli, and I have asked for the most expensive plate of pasta on the menu, the one with the name that I still can’t pronounce, and I smile even though the food sticks in my teeth and glues to my gums and swallows like the rasp of sandpaper. If I were the Woman, I would wash it down with a glass of overpriced champagne and purr a compliment through a forkful of pasta. But when I try to do this, the drink does not alleviate the itch in my throat. The bubbles cannot lift me from my punch-drunk sadness.

“No llores,” my ex tells me, reaching for my hand across the table, dodging a plate of untouched escargot. She has never had the courage to speak to me in Spanish, and I can tell that she’s pleased with her delivery, that she has practiced for this moment in front of the mirror, that she is waiting for my applause.

I wish for a waterfall, if only just to spite her. I pray that someone else in this godforsaken restaurant will actually look at me, will witness my ever-deepening well of unhappiness and wish for some wordless thing that could change both of our lives, will tell me that this situation has twisted so far beyond any semblance of control that surely tears are the only logical response. I am manifesting someone who will love me the way that I’m desperate to be loved.

But instead I dab at my eyes with the corner of my linen serviette, still eager to put on my mask and enter stage-right in the role of her partner, still grasping at performance despite having already given up, still hoping that this method acting can convince even me there’s a chance to rebuild the rubble left between us. I look down at the primly polished platter on the table and squint hard to catch a reflected glimpse of a Woman, but all I see is winged eyeliner smudged at the edges. I will myself to see Her, so hungry to be loved without asking, so worthy of that kind of sacrifice. I suffocate in the facade.

And I remember that I’ve been asking for years to be sitting here, now, at this table, in this theater, and that all it took was a breakup. I think of all the times I’ve walked past this restaurant—at least once a day for the last two years—blustering through the intersection of Boylston and Tremont, waltzing my way into the Theater District. I had always admired its doors, like twin sepia sheets, one-way mirrors to a dream date.

Once, I stopped and took stock of my reflection, interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic to perceive the person that the city had made me into. Everything was audience to the Woman in the etched glass of those reflective doors. I admired Her slick cropped hair, the heavy men’s overcoat cinched at Her waist, Her shiny black boots glinting in the cold sunlight. She smiles and shimmers and winks and walks away.

I know that this is not the woman that everyone sees in the restaurant.

“I love you,” my ex tells me, reeling me out of the reverie like the punchline of a joke and rubbing the calloused pad of her thumb over my too-tight, white knuckles. “I’m glad we finally came here. I’m sorry it took so long.”

My hand is numb by the time she withdraws hers. What I don’t say is that for the first time, I want away from this city. I want anything other than this fancy finality, like a wax seal on the envelope of our relationship.

The rest of the dinner glides by because I step out of myself: I am both audience and actor in this masquerade. I give myself up to the strength of the Woman, who adjusts the straps of Her velvet green dress as she forces a laugh at what has been said.

“A toast,” she says with a flourish as she clinks Her glass with Her partner. “To happy endings.”

“And to love,” Her co-star adds, and the Woman flashes a mummer’s perfect smile.

The Woman chews through a slice of cheesecake like cardboard and tells the waiter to give her compliments to the chef. She pretends to gasp in shock at the amount on the bill before she hands it over. She does not give a damn about how much has been spent to maintain this farce.

I come back to myself when we board the B line. The conductor looks at me as though he’s never seen a woman before, looks at me like the Woman and I are one, looks at me with the whisper of a wish in his beautiful brown eyes. His cheekbones are high and his jaw is square, and his thick black mustache curls at the edges with the promise of pleasure. When I know my ex isn’t watching, I wink and swing my hips, breezing past him to the back of the tram. I feel his stare branding me through the mirror above his seat.

“He might as well take a picture,” my ex says as she glares at him. She clasps my hand between the both of hers, the pantomime of a jealous lover. I remember the time she refused to kiss me because of the other passenger in our cabin, and I restrain myself from crushing her hand beneath the weight of my shame.

Instead, I hum a nothing-answer. I want him to take a picture. I pat her mindlessly, the perfect portrait of a placating wife.

And while I do this, I imagine his hands framed against my hips, his mustached mouth pressing kisses on my sex, my hands locked in his as I surrender to him. When we get off the train, I don’t dare to look at him.

Back in our half-empty apartment, she trails her mouth against my throat and tries to undress me.

“No,” I tell her, pulling her hands from my breasts. I know this is not what the Woman would want. “Not unless I top.”

I can tell from the quirk of her eyebrows that I’ve strayed too far from her script, but she accepts this improv and lets me take her. I let the Woman frame my hands on her hips. The Woman presses my kisses against her sex. When she tries to touch me, the Woman locks her hands in an unforgiving grip. And when she retaliates with the clamp of teeth on my shoulder, the Woman chokes her hard enough to make her lose her breath. She slaps me right on cue, and the Woman wishes she’d hit harder, wishes she’d leave me bloody and bruised with the fist of five years together.

The Woman is me, and I fuck her like hunger. Like a $250 dinner meant to make myself feel better. Our greatest performance, our magnum opus: an angry fuck from an unhappy ex.

When it’s over, she rests her head on my chest and traces the trail of hair on my belly.

“I’m going to miss this,” she says. I ignore the sob buried beneath these words. I think of all the times we fucked without feeling, the slide of her fingers mechanical inside of me, and I refuse to ever again be somebody’s half-hearted dress rehearsal. I accept that this performance is the final act.

“I’m going to miss the city,” I say, and the Woman I am leaves the bed.

I make my way through the maze of labeled boxes and step outside to smoke a cigarette. I trace the gold apartment number with my eyes. I commit its lines to my memory. I stare at the bright red parking permit taped against a tree, reserving the spot for the moving truck. I sit on the curb as I light my cigarette and watch the B line as it screeches by.

I wonder where the conductor is now, if he is smoking on a curb in front of his apartment. Was he searching for himself in the rubble of some relationship? Is he thinking of the Woman in the velvet green dress, wishing he could have gone home with Her? Are the wishes in those brown eyes waterfalling down his face?

Oh—the Woman’s wishes are waterfalling too.