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"There is a world of difference, Lulu, between falling in love and being in love"

I feel o hot, and I’m not entirely sure why "Isn’t it just sequential--A follows B?"

"You have to fall in love to be in love, but falling in love isn’t the sa in love" Willem peers at me from under his lashes "Have you ever fallen in love?"

Evan and I broke up the day after he e tuition deposit It wasn’t unexpected Not really We had already agreed ould break up ent to college if we didn’t wind up in the sa to school in St Louis I was going to school in Boston The thing I hadn’t expected was the tie off" and break up not in June, e graduated, or in August, e’d leave for school, but in April

But the thing is, aside fro sort of humiliated by the ru proly neutral about breaking up with my first boyfriend It was like he’d never even been there I didn’t aps he’d left in the schedule

"No," I reply "I’ve never been in love"

Just then the waitress arrives with our crêpes Mine is golden broafting with the sweet tartness of le off a slice and popping it in ue like a warm, sweet snowdrop

"That’s not what I asked," Willem says "I asked if you’ve ever fallen in love"

The playfulness is his voice is like an itch I just can’t scratch I look at hi if he always parses semantics like this

Wille in love" With his finger, he swipes a bit of the Nutella from inside his crêpe and puts a dollop on the inside of ainst my sticky skin, but before it has a chance to slither away, Willem licks his thumb and wipes the smear of Nutella off and pops it into hisa fly "This is being in love" And here he takes my other wrist, the one with my watch on it, andfor Once again, he licks his thuainstto scrub it off

"Being in love is a birthmark?" I joke as I retract my arm But my voice has a tre againstthat never coht want it to"

"You’re co love to astain?"

He leans so far back in his seat that the front legs of his chair scrape off the floor He looks very satisfied, with the crêpe or with himself, I’m not sure "Exactly"

I think of the coffee stain on his jeans I think of Lady Macbeth and her "Out, dalish "Stain seely word to describe love," I tell hilish In Dutch, it’s vlek In French, it’s tache" He shakes his head, laughs "No, still ugly"

"How es have you been stained in?"

He licks his thuain and reaches across the table for e of Nutella This time he wipes it--me--clean "None It always comes off" He scoops the rest of the crêpe into his e of his knife to scrape the Nutella off the plate Then he runs his finger around the riht," I say "And why get stained when getting dirty is so ain, and I wonder where all the sweetness went

Wille Just sips his coffee

Three women wander into the café They are all is that seee race of huiraffes Models I’ve never seen one in the wild before, but it is obvious what they are One of the a tiny pair of shorts and platforives her his little half smile, but then it’s like he catches himself and looks back at me

"You knohat it sounds like to me?" I ask "It sounds like you just like to screw around Which is fine But at least own that about yourself Don’tin love versus being in love"

I hear oody-two-shoes and sanctimonious So not like Lulu And I don’t knohy I’ in love versus being in love, or if he believes that love is so the tooth fairy shoves under your pillow?

When I look up, Wille, like I’m his court jester here to amuse him Itrefused soeous--a pony--she knows she can’t have

"You probably don’t even believe in love" My voice is petulant

"I do" His voice is quiet

"Really? Define love What would ‘being stained’"--I make air quotes and roll my eyes--"look like?"

He doesn’t even pause to think about it "Like Yael and Braelina? That doesn’t count, because who knohat it’s really like for them?" I watch the herd of models disappear inside the café, where they will no doubt feast on coffee and air I i that beautiful lasts forever

"Who’s Brangelina?" Willem asks absently He reaches into his pocket for a coin and balances it between two knuckles, then flips it from knuckle to knuckle

I watch the coin, watch his hands They are big, but his fingers are delicate "Never mind"

"Yael and Bram are my parents," he says quietly

"Your parents?"

He completes a revolution with the coin and then tosses it into the air "Stained I like how you put it Yael and Bram: Stained for twenty-five years"

He says it with both affection and sadness, and so in my stomach twists

"Are your parents like that?" he asks quietly

"They’re still married after nearly twenty-five years, but stained?" I can’t help but laugh "I don’t know if they ever were They were set up on a blind date in college And they’ve always seemed less like lovebirds than like amiable business partners, for whom I’m the sole product"

"Sole So you are alone?"

Alone? I think he must mean only And I’m never alone, not with Mo sure every sparesure every aspect of ed Except when I pause for a second and think about how I feel, at ho at me, not to me, at school with a bunch of people who never really became ot it right