The Idea of You

by Robinne Lee

“He thinks you are beautiful and he thinks you are smart,” he’d surmised about Daniel, that first weekend I’d brought him to Boston, when we had been dating for seven months. “But he has no real appreciation for what you are passionate about, who you are on the inside.”

“I’m falling in love with you. I’m just going to put that out there, because I can. Because you told me I couldn’t if I was sleeping with anyone else, and I’m not, so there you have it…”

“I think aging is hard for everyone.” Amara swiped a red bliss potato with crème fraîche and caviar off a passing tray. “But it’s definitely harder for women. And I think even more so for beautiful women. Because if so much of your identity and your value is tied up in your looks and how the world responds to your physical appearance, what do you do when that changes? How do you see yourself then? Who do you become?”