I want that, she remembered thinking. I want that so badly—but what was that? It wasn’t the old need for good grades, or a craving for validation. She was not a child anymore; she had left this pathology behind in college. But it wasn’t just the search for answers, either, or the simple satisfaction of a puzzle solved. It was a primitive thrill, a heady realization of what she could become, what worlds she could unlock, and it was all inextricably bound up in him.
