The phone was silent for about twenty minutes. When it pinged again, I reached for it eagerly—but this time it was Chendong, asking if she could stop by to talk about figure 2 in the electroweak symmetries paper. I agreed, trying to suppress my disappointment. It struck me that I was anticipating messages from “Charlie” the way I did when I met a new person-of-interest: my ordinary life buzzed with possibility every time I looked at my phone. I put it away and looked purposely out my window, but already on that dark afternoon it had the quality of a blank screen, reflecting my blurred image
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