Commitment: A novel

What he liked best in college was meeting a friend for a walk. He wished he could major in walks.

They could spend an afternoon together not saying much, but when he left he felt nourished as if he’d eaten a light but healthy meal.

“I wish I’d had even one. I guess you don’t get revelations from shopping.” She was keeping a journal to discern patterns. “It’s like anorexia. You can’t completely stop eating or using money. And what is it they say? One hundred percent is easier than ninety-five.” Donnie thought

One night, before she went home from the library, Lina found a room of cookbooks. She wrote down a California chef’s salad dressing recipe and made it in a jar. Her dinner tasted like a dish in a restaurant Sometimes, now, she was happy.

Gradually, Lina had come back to the way she’d been before Sacha; life was life, roving, wavelike, with the same quantities of pleasure, discomfort, sorrow, and excitement. Peace at the end of longing. The time with him, she’d thought she was happy. But along with that jolt of victory—he chose me—she’d felt a constant anxiety: Would she be able to

Their conversations didn’t catch, the way Lina needed hers to lock and turn.

And it wasn’t only college. It was profession. Status. Books they read touted the nobility of their kind of lives, because the writers of those books had themselves punched in their ten thousand hours and had to believe that that lost time was meaningful, even sacred. All the while other people were making meals and sitting down to eat together. Wh

Then he said, “I want to talk.” Standing. They both stilled. “What?” There was a clear moment, before the terror rushed in. She’d always known, if he left her, the sting would last. That was the danger of real love, she’d thought. It had the power to destroy you.

He thought of his mom. You lived every day with someone and then you left, and even if they were failing, you lost your virginity; your lives weren’t interdependent anymore, though you’d once been everything to each other.