Summary

In this chapter, Mailhot writes in the second person to a man, her teacher, with whom she had a love affair. He loves her writing, which comes "from an inhuman place" (8). After their first liaison, while waiting for him to call, Terese goes on a trip with another man, whom she barely likes. While away, she hears from her teacher who has left his girlfriend for her. Terese returns and they begin their relationship. Her boyfriend gets along with her son Isaiah and although she "safely wasn't familiar" with men, her life feels brighter now (11).

Then Terese and her boyfriend begin "to argue about autonomy and the agency [she] lacked with [him]" (11). Unlike other men, this boyfriend thinks of Terese as an equal, expects things of her, and wonders why she needs so much. They get emotionally closer but Terese knows that her...