“I was going to be so terrible at this… the worst he’d ever had probably. And then he’d never want to see me again (and I really wanted to see him again). I’d probably be traumatized and never want to have sex again, which meant every relationship for the rest of my life would fail, and I would end up alone and miserable with nine cats and a ferret.”

“He’d gone into their marriage determined that she would never be alone again. In the end, she’d made him as alone in the world as she.”

“I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t think he’d ever really notice me, and in the end, he didn’t.”

“I see Nick's number. I debate whether to assign a name to his number. If I commit to that, then I will truly be heartbroken if he never calls me again; my heart will knot each and every time I use this phone and see his name in there. I would probably end up having to trash the phone entirely.”

“But I had loved him. I loved him longer and truer than I had anyone in my whole life and I would probably never love anyone that way again. Which to be honest was almost a relief.”

“I wished that my hand would work again," I tell him when he climbs in after me. it was my first wish and the only one that mattered."I wished my mother was here tonight, which is stupid, because it's an impossible wish." He shrugs and turns to me, drowning the smile that cracks me every time."It's not stupid to want to see her again.""It wasn't so much that I wanted to see her again, " he says, looking at me with the depth of more than seventeen years in his eyes. "I wanted her to see you.”