"This is what I meant to say," he began again, but she was not listening. She waited while he braided words, while he fashioned them into hairdos from the sixities, seventies, and God forbid, the eighties. If he was funny before he was not funny any longer. If he once seemed clever, it was no longer endearing. This was now a desperate man, a homeless hairdresser, a panhandler for approval and affection.

"Are you Cremnophobic?" He was still talking when she asked this. "Do you fear precipices? We're at the edge of one now and you're really fighting it." He stopped talking. What she said waved again through his mind. A smaller wave, then another. It began to lap against the side of his boat. "There was a day when we didn't know each other, a day when we did, and now we'll live the days when we used to know each other. It's nothing to get upset over." The end of her statement ran into The Moment. Her heart beat a little faster, her throat tightened. This is when he might do anything, say anything, turn into anything. She was done with him. This was the moment that scared her and the one that freed her.

This time The Moment passed differently. This man smiled. "Do the next guy a favor, tell him this is coming." He was truly calm. There's a calm that comes before being frightening. This was not it. "Cremnophobia. I've got news for you, I'm not upset and we've never really known each other."

He began to walk away and she expected him to laugh aloud. If he had said "Ha!" she would have felt better. He didn't laugh, or turn around. She stopped watching him in case he did. She said to herself,  "Commitmentphobic. That's what I am."

That night on her couch she wrote in her journal. She talked to her cat. She called her Mom. Before bed she arranged her office clothes. She took their picture from the bureau and put it in the drawer. This is why she doesn't keep ice cream in the house.