The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

by Jennifer E. Smith

That’s the thing about flying: You could talk to someone for hours and never even know his name, share your deepest secrets and then never see him again.

In the end, it’s not the changes that will break your heart; it’s that tug of familiarity.

There’s always a gap between the burn and the sting of it, the pain and the realization.

It was his fault, all of it, and yet her hatred for him was the worst kind of love, a tortured longing, a misguided wish that made her heart hammer in her chest. She couldn’t ignore the disjointed sensation that they were now two different pieces of two different puzzles, and nothing in the world could make them fit together again.

“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”

He’s like a song she can’t get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn’t think she could ever get tired of hearing it.

“No one is useless in this world,” it reads, “who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”

“Love isn’t supposed to make sense. It’s completely illogical.”