It didn’t work out. That’s a simplification. Just because something eventually doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it never worked out. It was working out fine until, not much later, it wasn’t working out at all. Happiness is not canceled out by unhappiness. A relationship is not canceled out by its end. But try telling that to either of them, who, while still friends in a shaky, tentative sort of way, regarded the connection they had as an anomaly, a closeness brought on by shared danger mistaken for a true and lasting romance.
