She had not really liked either boy, but instead felt confused about her position, in each of their lives, as a desired object. She stayed up late at night trying to pray, trying to address, in the divine gaze of God, her fear that human-on-human love was really the root of all suffering, all malaise, all bad music, all good music, all addiction, all psychological problems, all joy, all art, all laughter, all sorrow, all ecstasy, most pregnancies and therefore most human beings from the best to the worst, and therefore all global warming, all disaster, all war, all science, all art, all waste, all of us and all of it, and wasn’t it true that the only way out, the only way to soberly and respectably pass your life, wasn’t the only honest option to devote yourself entirely to God and nothing else, to never align yourself with something so base as another person, to avoid the distraction of heartbreak and longing and mixed feelings, to avoid romantic entanglements altogether? Or was refusing God’s (perfect, but twisted, but perfect) creation a kind of sacrilege on its own?