Love the one youre with

'Someday.'

Andy's hand moves more slowly and gradually stills. Then he closes his eyes for a few more minutes of sleep while I watch his eyelids flutter and imagine someday, every day, with Andy.

seven

Thoughts of Leo fade almost completely over the next week, which I credit to my contented life with Andy, Margot's exciting news, and maybe most of all, my work. It's amazing what a productive, satisfying week of work can do for your psyche, and I consider myself very lucky (or as Margot would say- blessed-a nice, spiritual spin on the source of good fortune) to have the kind of job I can get happily lost in. I read once that when the hours pass in a blur while you work, you know you have found your calling, and although every day isn't like this for me, I certainly am no stranger to that immersed feeling.

I now own my own one-woman photography business, working on a freelance basis. I have an agent who books assignments for me-anything from advertising shoots for hefty sums, sometimes as much as several thousand dollars for a couple days' work, to smaller, editorial assignments, which I actually prefer from a creative standpoint.

I love portraiture most of all-perhaps because I'm not a very outgoing person. I don't talk easily to strangers, although I wish I could, and taking someone's portrait allows me to make that inroad. I enjoy meeting someone for a leisurely afternoon, becoming acquainted over lunch or coffee, and then getting down to business. I love the trial and error of it all, tinkering with various positions and lighting until I get it just right. There is nothing more satisfying than capturing that one, perfect image. My interpretation of another soul. I also love the variety of the work. Shooting an entrepreneur for Business Week, for example, feels very different from taking photos for a piece in The New York Times Style section or a glossy spread for Town amp; Country, and the people I'm photographing vary as much as the publications. In the past few weeks alone, I've shot a bestselling author, the cast of an art-house film, a college basketball star and his legendary coach, and an up-and-coming pastry chef.

In short, I've come a long, long way since my days of processing film on Second Avenue, and my only lingering regret about my encounter with Leo-other than that it happened at all-is that I didn't have the chance to tell him about my career. Of course I would rather he know about Andy than my work; but ideally, I wish he knew about both. Then again, perhaps he knows more than he let on. Perhaps the reason that he didn't ask about my career is that he has already found my Web site or stumbled across one of my more prominent credits. After all, I've sheepishly poked about for his bylines, skimming his features with a bizarre combination of detachment and interest, pride and scorn. It's a matter of curiosity-and anyone who says they are utterly indifferent to what their significant exes are doing is, in my opinion, either lying or lacking a certain amount of emotional depth. I'm not saying it's healthy to be past-obsessed, ferreting out details of every ex. But it's simply human nature to have an occasional, fleeting interest in someone whom you once loved.

So assuming Leo has come across my Web site or work, I hope he goes on to surmise that our breakup was a catalyst in my life-a springboard for bigger and better things. In some ways, he would be right about this, although I don't believe you can fully blame anyone else for your own lack of ambition- which was certainly a trend during our relationship.

To this point, I cringe when I think back to how complacent I became on the career front when I was with Leo. My love for photography never waned completely, but I certainly loved it with far less urgency-just as everything in my life became secondary to our relationship. Leo was all I could think about, all I wanted to do. He filled me up so completely that I simply had no energy left to take photos. No time or motivation to even contemplate the next rung on my career ladder. I remember riding the bus to the photo lab every day, well after I had learned everything I could possibly learn from Quynh, and saying things to myself like, 'I don't need to look for another job. Money isn't important to me. I'm happy with a simple life.'

After work, I'd head straight for Leo's new place, back in Queens, ever available to him, only returning to my own apartment when he had other plans or when I needed a fresh supply of clothes. On the rare nights we were apart, I sometimes went out with Margot and our group of friends, but I preferred staying in, where I would daydream about Leo or plan our next adventure together or compile cassette mixes of songs that seemed cool enough, smart enough, soulful enough for my cool, smart, soulful boyfriend. I wanted so much to please Leo, impress him, make sure that he needed and loved me as much as I needed and loved him.

At first, it seemed to work. Leo was just as smitten as I, only in the less sappy guy way. He never completely abandoned his work like I did, but he was also older, and further established in his career, with important assignments and hard deadlines. He did, however, include me in his professional life, letting me tag along to his interviews or bringing me into his office on the weekends where I'd organize his files or simply watch him while he typed up his stories (or seduced me on his desk). And he was just as willing as I was to blow off his friends and family, preferring our time together to be alone, just the two of us.

For months, things stayed that way, and it felt blissful, magical. We never tired of talking. Our good-byes, whether on the phone or in person, were always lingering, as if it might be the very last time we would ever speak. We sacrificed sleep for conversation, asking endless questions about each other and our respective pasts. No childhood detail was too trivial, which is always a sure sign that someone is in love-or at the very least obsessed. Leo even took a photo of my six-year-old front-toothless self from an album in my bedroom, declaring it 'the cutest thing ever' before tacking it up on a bulletin board in his kitchen.

I exposed every part of myself to him, keeping no secrets, no defense mechanism in place. I revealed all my insecurities, from insignificant but embarrassing things, like how I've always hated my knees, to deeper issues about how I sometimes felt inadequate around Margot and our other well-traveled, wealthy friends in the city. Most important, I told him all about my mother, including uncut details of her death that I had never discussed with anyone. How she looked so frail that it conjured images from the Holocaust. How I had watched my father clear out her throat with his hand one night when she literally couldn't breathe-an image that continues to haunt me now. How at one point I actually said a prayer for the end to just come-and not only so she'd be put out of her misery but so the hospice people and the smell of sickness would be purged from our house, and my father could stop worrying about her death, hiding his notebook of funeral arrangements whenever I came in the room. And then how horribly guilty I felt the moment it finally happened, almost as if I made her die sooner than she would have otherwise. I told Leo how I sometimes felt almost ashamed to be motherless, like no matter what else I did in life, I would always be marked and categorized and pitied for that one fact.

At every turn, Leo listened and consoled me and said all the right things-that although I had lost her at a young age, she had still formed the person I was today. That my memories of her would never fade and the good times would slowly supplant the end. That my descriptions and stories were so vivid, that he felt like he knew her.

Meanwhile, the confessions weren't one-sided. Leo shared his own secrets, too-mostly dysfunctional family tales about his passive, homemaker mother who had no self-esteem, and his mean-spirited, controlling father whose approval he could never quite win. He told me that he wished he had had the money to go to a better, bigger-named college and actually graduate, and that he, too, sometimes felt intimidated by the Manhattan rich-kid set with their fancy journalism school credentials. I felt it hard to believe that someone as amazing as Leo would have any insecurities, but his vulnerability only made me love him more.

And then, aside from everything else, and maybe more important than everything else, there was our chemistry. The physical connection. The mind-blowing, ridiculous sex which was the stuff of both poetry and porn- so unlike anything else I had ever experienced before. For the first time, I wasn't at all self-conscious or inhibited when it came to sex. There was nothing that felt off-limits. Nothing I wouldn't do for him, to him, with him. We kept saying that surely it couldn't get any better. But somehow it did, again and again.

In short, we were completely in sync, insatiable, and sickeningly, crazy in lust and love. So much so that it seemed too good to be true. And so it shouldn't have surprised me to discover that it was too good to be true.

I can't say exactly when it happened, but about one year into our relationship, things began to change. There was nothing dramatic that happened-no rift based on a major life issue, no big fight with nasty, irretrievable words.