WE’D KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR only about two weeks when Jake left town for two nights. We’d seen each other or spoken almost every day since meeting. He would call. I’d text. But I learned he hated texting. He might send one text, two at most. If the conversation went any further, he would call. He likes talking and listening. He appreciates discourse.

It was weird to be all alone again for those two days when he was away. That was what I’d been used to, before, but after, it felt insufficient. I missed him. I missed being with another person. It’s corny, I know, but I felt like a part of me was gone.

Getting to know someone is like putting a never-ending puzzle together. We fit the smallest pieces first and we get to know ourselves better in the process. The details I know about Jake—that he likes his meat well-done, that he avoids using public bathrooms, that he hates when people pick their teeth with their fingernails after a meal—are trivial and inconsequential compared to the large truths that take time to eventually reveal themselves.

After spending so much time alone, I started to feel like I knew Jake well, really well. If you’re seeing someone constantly, like Jake and I did after only two weeks, it starts to feel . . . intense. It was intense. I thought about him all the time those first couple of weeks, even when we weren’t together. We’d had lots of long talks while sitting on the floor, or lying on the couch, or in bed. We could talk for hours. One of us starting into a topic, the other picking up on it. We’d ask each other questions. We’d discuss, debate. It wasn’t about agreeing all the time. One question would always lead to another. Once, we stayed up all night talking. Jake was different from anyone else I’d ever met. Our bond was unique. Is unique. I still think that.

“Trying to restore a critical balance,” Jake says. “That’s something we’ve been thinking about at work lately. Critical balance is needed in everything. I was thinking about this in bed the other night. Everything is so . . . delicate. Take something like metabolic alkalosis—a very slight rise in the pH level of tissue, which has to do with a small dip in hydrogen concentration. It’s just . . . it’s all extremely subtle. It’s only one example, and yet it’s vital. There are so many things like this. Everything is impossibly fragile.”

“A lot of things are, yeah,” I say. Like everything I’ve been thinking about.

“Some days, a current runs through me. There’s an energy in me. And you. It’s something worth being aware of. Does this make any sense? Sorry, I’m rambling.”

I have my feet out of my shoes and they’re up, resting on the dashboard in front of me. I’m leaning back in my seat. I feel like I could doze off. It’s the rhythm of the wheels on the road, the movement. Driving has this anesthetic effect on me.

“What do you mean by the current?” I ask, closing my eyes.

“Just how it feels. You and me,” he says. “The singular velocity of flow.”

“HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DEPRESSED or anything?” I ask.

We’ve just made what felt like a significant turn. We’d been on the same road for a while. We turned at a stop sign, not at a light. Left. There are no traffic lights out here.

“Sorry, that was out of the blue. I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

For years, my life has been flat. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I’ve never admitted it before. I’m not depressed, I don’t think. That’s not what I’m saying. Just flat, listless. So much has felt accidental, unnecessary, arbitrary. It’s been lacking a dimension. Something seems to be missing.

“Sometimes, I feel sad for no apparent reason,” I say. “Does this happen to you?”

“Not particularly, I don’t think,” he says. “I used to worry when I was kid.”

“Worry?”

“Yeah, like I would worry about insignificant things. Some people, strangers, might worry me. I had trouble sleeping. I’d get stomachaches.”

“How old were you then?”

“Young. Maybe eight, nine. When it would get bad, my mom would make what she called ‘kids tea,’ which was pretty much all milk and sugar, and we’d sit and talk.”

“About what?”

“Usually about what I’d been worried about.”

“Do you remember anything specific?”

“I never worried about dying, but I did worry about people in my family dying. Mostly it was abstract fears. For a while I worried one of my limbs might fall off.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we had sheep at our farm, lambs. A day or two after a lamb was born, Dad would put special rubber bands around its tail. They’re very tight, enough to stop the blood flow. After a few days, the tail would just fall off. It’s not painful for the lambs; they don’t even know what’s happening.

“Every so often, as a kid, I’d be out in the fields and I’d find a severed lamb tail. I started to wonder if the same thing could happen to me. What if the sleeves on a shirt or a pair of socks were slightly too tight? And what if I slept with my socks on and I woke up in the middle of the night and my foot had fallen off? It made me worry, too, about what’s important. Like, why isn’t the tail an important part of the lamb? How much of you can fall off before something important is lost? Right?”

“I can see how that might be unnerving.”

“Sorry. That was a very long answer to your question. So to answer, I would say that no, I’m not depressed.”

“But sad?”

“Sure.”

“Why is that—how is that different?”

“Depression is a serious illness. It’s physically painful, debilitating. And you can’t just decide to get over it in the same way you can’t just decide to get over cancer. Sadness is a normal human condition, no different from happiness. You wouldn’t think of happiness as an illness. Sadness and happiness need each other. To exist, each relies on the other, is what I mean.”

“It seems like more people, if not depressed, are unhappy these days. Would you agree?”

“I’m not sure I’d say that. It does seem like there’s more opportunity to reflect on sadness and feelings of inadequacy, and also a pressure to be happy all the time. Which is impossible.”

“That’s what I mean. We live in a sad time, which doesn’t make sense to me. Why is that? Are there more sad people around now than there used to be?”

“There are many around the university, students and profs whose biggest concern each day—and I’m not exaggerating—is how to burn the proper number of calories for their specific body type based on diet and amount of strenuous exercise. Think about that in the context of human history. Talk about sad.

“There’s something about modernity and what we value now. Our shift in morality. Is there a general lack of compassion? Of interest in others? In connections? It’s all related. How are we supposed to achieve a feeling of significance and purpose without feeling a link to something bigger than our own lives? The more I think about it, the more it seems happiness and fulfillment rely on the presence of others, even just one other. The same way sadness requires happiness, and vice versa. Alone is . . .”

“I know what you mean,” I say.

“There’s an old example that gets used in first-year philosophy. It’s about context. It goes like this: Todd has a small plant in his room with red leaves. He decides he doesn’t like the look of it and wants his plant to look like the other plants in his house. So he very carefully paints each leaf green. After the paint dries, you can’t tell that the plant has been painted. It just looks green. Are you with me?”

“Yeah.”

“The next day he gets a call from his friend. She’s a plant biologist and asks if he has a green plant she can borrow to do some tests on. He says no. The next day, another friend, this time an artist, calls to ask if he has a green plant she can use as a model for a new painting. He says yes. He’s asked the same question twice and gives opposite answers, and each time he’s being honest.”

“I see what you mean.”

Another turn, this time at a four-way stop.

“It seems to me that in the context of life and existing and people and relationships and work, being sad is one correct answer. It’s truthful. Both are right answers. The more we tell ourselves that we should always be happy, that happiness is an end in itself, the worse it gets. And by the way, this isn’t a very original thought or anything. You know I’m not trying to be brilliant right now, right? We’re just talking.”

“We’re communicating,” I say. “We’re thinking.”

IT’S MY PHONE THAT BREAKS the silence, ringing from my bag. Again.

“Sorry,” I say, reaching down to retrieve it. It’s my number on the screen. “My friend again.”

“Maybe you should answer it this time.”

“I really don’t feel like talking. She’ll stop calling eventually. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I put the phone in my bag but pick it up again when it beeps. Two new messages. This time, I’m glad the volume of the radio is high. I don’t want Jake to hear the messages. But the Caller’s not talking in the first message. It’s just sounds, noises, running water. In the second, it’s more running water and I can hear him walking, footsteps, and what sounds like hinges, a door closing. It’s him. It has to be.

“Anything important?” Jake asks.