I exulted in this elusiveness, imagining myself a shape-shifting trickster, legible only as I wanted.

Some of the men we knew declared their love to us in English, the language a deception, a second skin they donned and shed as they wished. We fell in love with these guys, swept up in the slipperiness of their words, their declarations. We were in love. We thought we were in love. We felt sure it was love, this time.