Love, she had been told, was both thrilling and noxious, an addictive threat that defied all logic—love was footsteps on the bottom stair, a pair of hands at the base of her throat. But love did not have to be tainted with hurt. She thought of Kristen and her kids, splashing in the backyard pool, singing along to some pop song Saffy didn’t know. She thought of Corinne and her wife, hands clasped proudly at the station’s Christmas party. Saffy had spent her life so steeped in this examination of pain, what it meant, why it persisted. She had spent her years chasing pointless violence, if only
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