Being in love with him was very much like executing a game with a mechanical chess-playing machine, I imagine. I knew in my heart that I would always win, that I would never compromise, that I would never let him deep enough inside me to latch on and secure himself as if it were a new home. I knew I never wanted to be his home. No matter how much he begged, no matter how much he pleaded—I’d sooner swallow wet concrete than let him call me his or dare to call him mine.
