The drive ended up taking four times as long as it usually did, but Zoe did make her flight. It was the first time Marx had ever truly been broken up with. He knew he should be devastated, but what he felt was relief. The relationship, without him noticing, had been the longest one he had ever had. He had seen no reason to end it. He had never tired of coming home to their place and finding her naked, playing some new instrument. Why end something that worked over the vague notion that he could love someone more deeply than he loved Zoe, who was by every measure fantastic? It was a strange moment in Marx’s personal development. He was no longer the boy who wanted to taste everything at the buffet, and he considered it a sign of his own maturity that he had not thought to end things with Zoe. But his disdain for his former itinerancy had made it so he could not recognize the reasons a person should stay.