““How different this was, she thought, from the way Ethan had been with her. Ethan had said exactly what he felt; he hadn't tried to hide any of it. He had presented himself before her, letting her know that he was offering himself up, and did she want him? And when she'd said no, he hadn't pretended that this wasn't what he'd meant at all; he'd simply said, let's try again. So they had tried. And though at the end of the failed experiment there were no hard feelings, he'd finally admitted he would always be a little wounded by her rejection. "Just a tiny amount," he'd said. "But it will last my whole life.””
