“My mother always pouted that it was actually her paintings and not her charm, her beauty or her sass that made him fall in love with her. He'd always insisted that it was definitely her sass. I knew the truth. He fell for all those things, and when she died, it was like someone had extinguished the sun, and he had nothing left to orbit.”

“I felt the threads of connection between us—fragile filaments, so easily snapped. Like the poem at shift into his side, we were craving to fit inside the other, and is melting and reshaping could be deeper, more resilient.”

“Not stupid. Overly trusting, maybe, but that reflects on his lack of trustworthiness, not on your intelligence.”

“I was so afraid of wanting too much that I couldn't trust her handing me a shot at getting it. I don't want to be that senselessly fearful ever again.”

“She shuddered. “What is it with slobbery kissers? Are they trying to drown us in spit? I mean, Jesus, swallow every now and then.”

“I had become Harry Potter. Except I was thirteen and not magic, and my destiny, whatever it was, held no profound purpose.”

“But girls willing to share your bed don't equal girls willing to put up with your random crap moods, listen to your exhaustive legal opinions, or support your life's goals the way someone who loves you would.”

“I had to stop linking every single thing that happened to me with Kennedy. Realization dawned then, that he was still my default. Over the past three years, we’d become each other’s habit. And though he’d broken his habit of me when he walked away, I’d not broken my habit of him. I was still tethering him to my present, to my future. The truth was, he now belonged only to my past, and it was time I began to accept it, as much as it hurt to do so.”

“Oh No! My wings are effed up!”

“I’ve been thinking about that proof I spoke of last time – that you’re where you’re supposed to be. And it occurred to me, can you prove you’d be better off somewhere else? If you’d have left the state, your relationship would have ended still. Maybe you’d have even blamed yourself, not knowing that it was doomed because of him, either way. Instead, you’re here. You got dumped, skipped class, and met the best econ tutor at the university! Who knows, maybe I’ll make you fall in love with economics.”

“I shrugged. “I guess that guys who’d never do something like that have a hard time believing some other guy would,” I said, but I could see her point. Awareness and apologies were fine and good, but they could come too late.”