““Driving home that night, I felt so much better. I was no longer a freak of nature--the kind of freak that spends every waking hour with a man for months on end but has some sort of bizarre mental defect that prevents her from articulating her feelings for him--the kind of freak that allows the man to express his love time after time but gives nothing in return. I felt good about it, too, that I’d had the uncharacteristic boldness to tell him I loved him before he’d had a chance to say it to me first that night. I wanted to say I love you , not I love you, too. I knew there was a reason I liked submarine movies. I had no idea where our relationship was headed. But I did know that I meant what I’d said. I slept like a baby that night.””
