The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

by Jennifer E. Smith

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

Violet repeats, forming the words slowly, as if worried that her friend’s new stepdaughter might be a few ants shy of a picnic.

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