The danger with Josh and me, as the doctors said, was that he would associate being in my company with feeling good. For his own mental health, he would need to learn how to feel well without me. And I would have to do the same.

Soon after, I found myself broken up with, feeling abandoned in the way I did when my parents’ car pulled away. Later it would occur to me that the doctors probably gave Josh the same speech about hindering the other’s progress, and he had taken it to heart.

But as I stood in hoarding prevention group that day, clutching that stupid card like a lifeline, the notion had not crossed my mind. The pain ached like a fresh wound. My only thought was that I had been let go and was being forced to let go in turn.

As I began to sob, I felt a pair of arms encircle me. I knew immediately whose they were. And although the romantic in me rejoiced, the more primal part screamed in protest. My insides churned as if having a gastrointestinal reaction to being loved.

I knew the words to make him let go: “Josh. Please stop. If you don’t, I’m going to throw up on you.”

He shook his head into my shoulder. “I don’t care,” he said.

I doubt many couples’ most romantic moment involves one person threatening to throw up on the other and having him say O.K., but it was ours. And I wish I could say that afterward we left the institution and raced off into the sunset arm in arm, stomping on cracks in the pavement all the while, but that’s not what happened.