How to End a Love Story

by Yulin Kuang

it makes Helen wonder if she could become a totally different person here, the kind with morning routines and inner peace.

author photo comes up first and she looks more or less the way he remembers her, except older and more expensive.

Would like to connect before the room starts, if you’re open. Lunch? She had forwarded the email to her agent’s assistant, who understood the tacit assignment and coordinated a time and place without fuss or direct contact between them.

Suraya holds up a hand. “I’m the boss, I get to say whose fault this is, and it’s always mine. I should have known it’d take more than dinner and drinks to win you over.”

I don’t have much faith in heaven or an afterlife these days. But I’ve been wrong about many things in this life so maybe I’m wrong about that too.