At the end of the first block of Easy Lane, Sabrina turns us down another

But a deeper part of me, a voice that’s always been there, tells me it was always going to end this way. That I’ve known since that first trip to Indiana that I would never be enough to make him happy, that I couldn’t give him the kind of love his parents had when my only education on the subject had been the one my parents had. Two days after our

And for the second time, I tuck myself into their tiny second-floor bathroom with the water running and sob into my knuckles, because I know I can’t take him back to San Francisco. Know I can’t bear to be the person who takes him away from where he belongs.

breathing hard in the cold. “I think I love you, Harriet,” he says. Love, I think. That’s new. And I’ll never be happy without it again.

Like we had nowhere to be, nothing to do but be together.”

Sabrina had never wanted to get married, lest she have to go through a vicious divorce. I was more scared of marrying someone who couldn’t bring himself to leave me or to keep loving me. It was why I hadn’t let myself cry when Wyn dumped me, or ask for answers or a second chance. I knew the only thing more painful than being without him would be

The point is, some people live the bulk of their lives in their minds (me), and some are highly physical beings (Wyn).

you were naked in the painting,” he clarifies. “I just forgot it might be weird to tell someone they look exactly the same as they do in a painting where they’re not wearing clothes.” “This is going really well,”

he’d loved the feeling of coming to an agreement with another living thing, of understanding each other’s needs, giving space when it was time for it, and pulling close when it was needed.