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Was it not good? I said.

Can we talk?

You used to like it, didn't you?

Can I ask you something? he said. Do you want me to leave her?

I looked at him then. He looked tired, and I could see that he hated everything I was doing to him. My body felt completely disposable, like a placeholde…

I was shivering. I tried to think about things that made me feel safe and normal. Material possessions: the white blouse drying on a hanger in the bathroom, the alphabetized novels on my bookshelf, the set of green china cups.

He was oddly quiet for a few seconds and I worried he had something else bad to tell me. Finally he said: I know you don't like to seem upset by things. But it's not a sign of weakness to have feelings. A kind of hard smile came over my face then, and I felt the radiant energy of spite fill my body.

[...] I didn't know what I wanted from him. What I seemed to want, though I didn't like to believe this, was for him to renounce every other person and thing in his life and pledge himself to me exclusively. This was outlandish not only because I had also slept with someone else during our relation…

[...] I realized my life would be full of mundane physical suffering, and that there was nothing special about it. Suffering wouldn't make me special, and pretending not to suffer wouldn't make me special. Talking about it, or even writing about it, would not transform the suffering into something …