She is a young woman in love. She had been a girl, who, at seven, danced with a handsome older cousin at a wedding, looking up at him with steady, curious eyes, wondering at the first blush of an attraction for which she didn’t yet know the name. She came to believe in love, as a boy might believe in heroism: as an occasion for both virtue and adventure.
Human connection is beautiful, but one must remember not to dampen that burgeoning fire by committing
the greatest sin of all friendships: forgetting a name.
Reach for a hardcover book with his name
sprawled across the top. It’s only natural,
you consider, to be drawn in by philosophers whose
names you once pronounced phonetically.
