Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say.

I knew what it was to yearn for a life so distant it seemed that it had never been anything more than a dream.

Outside, the September air was enticingly fragrant, yellow with pollen and rich, lemony sunlight.

I wept to think that life went on even when so much had been lost, that rain still fell and myrtle grew between the rocks.

Love was like rain: it turned into ice, or it disappeared. Now you saw it, now you couldn't find it no matter how hard you might search. Love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe. It didn't go away in the blink of an eye. A morning phone call filled with regret. A letter that said, Dear you, good-bye from me. Obsession tasted like something familiar. Something you'd known your whole life. It settled and lurked; it stayed with you.

Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.