Some people see their spouses as separate from them,′ Megan says. ‘And some people see their spouses as an extension of them, and that informs their attitude and behavior.

And Josh wanted to tell her what he knew: that love might look like a shore but turn out to be a desert island, where you roamed alone, talking to yourself, trying to crack open coconuts with your shoe. So thirsty you drank the salt water. So hungry you ate the sand.

We will all satisfy our curiosity when we can, which is any time we think no one will catch us.

So Sonia was not my only or even my first best friend. She was the last. It wasn t that I hadn t made friends since just that I thought myself past the age of that particular kind of friendship. Adult friendship doesn t grant you an exclusive isn t meant to be ranked above romance and family. I couldn t imagine ever living that moment again when you say with a shy and hopeful pride You re my best friend. The other person says it back and there you have chosen each other out of everyone else in the world.

Why was it so hard to tell the difference between what you thought you wanted and what you wanted? Why did people have to be such a danger to themselves?

She could have made different choices, but all that mattered were the ones she’d made.

I don’t have to wonder where he he, what he’s doing, or who. I don’t have to worry about all the ways he’ll scar my son. I don’t have to watch myself give in again and again, audience to my own relentless weakness. I thought if he were gone I wouldn’t hate myself so much, which isn’t true, as it turns out, but still his absence is as close as I can get to freedom. There’s a certain clearheadedness now, there’s a kind of lonely clarity –.

Adult friendship doesn’t grant you an exclusive, isn’t meant to be ranked above romance and family.

She couldn’t be sure that everything she knew about herself was portable.

How they’d started out so much in love, and how things had slowly gone wrong, and how she’d tried, she’d tried, she’d tried. How whenever she resolved to leave Tommy, she’d succumb to sorrow and nostalgia, yes, but mostly she could just never resist her stupid, primal attraction to him, and one of those times they’d conceived Milo.