The Sunshine State.

Months ago she'd warned him, "Don't worry, we'll get used to each other." He'd taken her statement as a threat and it wasn't comforting to him in the slightest. He'd never in his life intended to find someone to get used to. By saying that so pointedly to him she was making a claim for his future, or at least the next few months of his life. She was assuming they would get used to each other’s habits and somehow be a couple by the time it took a person to accept obsessive nail biting as cute and not as grotesque as it actually was. Her selfish reasoning that he was committed to her was one reason why he left her.

Another reason was less justifiable but much more important to him: she had become increasingly terrible in bed. The more sex they had the less natural it felt for the both of them, as if the closer they got the less they were able to meet each other’s needs. It wasn't that she lacked skill or experience; in fact it was her experience that lent to her clumsy advances and poorly timed shouts of intended ecstasy. She made love to him like a paranoid movie starlet, trying against all odds to make their passion seem real for an audience of critics and perverts. Her movements were contrived, her moans distracting and not nearly believable. The more she tried to conjure up chemistry, the more concentration it took for him to maintain his interest in her. There was nothing romantic to her movement whatsoever and he told himself that was the reason he never fell in love with her.

He found an apartment on the other side of the Mission district at the edge of Potrero while flipping through one of her unread newspapers. "I deal exclusively in the state streets," the Realtor said. "I've got places on Missouri, the Show Me State, a studio on Tennessee, the Neighbor State, and a nice three bedroom on California, the Golden State. You know, cause they found the gold there." He signed a lease, sight unseen, on a third story studio on Florida Street, the Sunshine State.

"You'll love it," the Realtor told him. "It's a good state to be in."

He began moving his things into his new apartment slowly, boxes he had packed while she was out and had hidden under the bed until he had a chance to sneak off with them. Then one day after he'd taken all he could without her noticing, he left for work and never returned. A week later he called to explain and he wanted to tell her something about how bad he felt, but he was only able to say, "You can keep the couch if you want it." She hung up on him and had all her bills forwarded to his office, and he paid them until she moved six months later.

It was the least he could do.