““We should have talked…” “Maybe,” I said. Of all the things I could have uttered that morning, this insignificant “maybe” was the cruelest. “Did you hate it?” No, I didn’t hate it at all. But what I felt was worse than hate. I didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about it. Just put it away. It had never happened. I had tried it and it didn’t work for me, now I wanted my money back, roll back the film, take me back to that moment when I’m almost stepping out onto the balcony barefoot, I’ll go no farther, I’ll sit and stew and never know—better to argue with my body than feel what I was feeling now. Elio, Elio, we warned you, didn’t we?””
