We both know the limits of this relationship. It's understood. And as long as we're both comfortablewith that, nobody gets hurt. It's basic.

Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible

But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.

I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.

In my group of friends, I was always the one who remembered everything. The stories, the boys my friends and I dated, all the details. So I think a part of me was always filing them away, although at the time I wasn't sure why.

And trying to break it down this way, to minor and major offenses, maybes and what-ifs, was like arguing over the origin of cracks in a broken egg. It was done. How it happened didn't matter anymore.

Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once.