I don’t want to be redundant, so I’ll sum up: We are the couple in movies who damage each other but can’t quit.

After initially not wanting me to know where she now lives, she relented and gave me her address for a Lyft. I paid to get up there; she paid to get me home.

Now, this is not the first time my gut has decided to interrupt the conversation … that happened a few minutes after we met and I was in her kitchen, knowing that I already lived there (moving in would take 12 days). That was supposed to be a one-night stopover on account of weather, and yet here we are 16 years later.

If we’re to accelerate things, shit gets spicy in a hurry, as her boys can’t know. They hold me responsible for several things I actually did, as well as several poor decisions my ex made that were easier to use me as a scapegoat for.

Anyway, she wants me back up there next week, same payment terms.

Compared to a van in January, an apartment with HVAC holds certain appeal. I just fear we may end up with enough time together to fall into old patterns separate from the supportive ones we sustained over two days in December.

This is the definition of playing with fire. We know it can’t work. We know why it can’t work.

And yet we are, again, moths to a flame.