Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney

And what if life is just a collection of essentially unrelated experiences? Why does one thing have to follow meaningfully from another?

How often in his life he has found himself a frustrated observer of apparently impenetrable systems, watching other people participate effortlessly in structures he can

find no way to enter or even understand. So often that it’s practically baseline, just normal existence for him.

And she answers: Well, look who it is.