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‘Gabe’ Her voice was husky with the unexpected need ‘Who was she?’

‘Marie’ The sound of loss and regret pulsed through her ‘She was sixteen’

‘Like I was,’ she breathed, absurdly glad to find sohostly lover

‘Sareed ‘Only I didn’t find someone else She left me’

‘Youto fall into place

He nodded, his fingers alrip, anchoring hi is distilled down You’re defined by your illness but underneath? Underneath you’re still a person, a teenager desperate to act out and find yourself, and the steroid bloating and the hair loss and the bruising and burns? None of it changes that Marie and I met and we knew each other Instantly’

A shocking, unwanted jolt of jealousy hit her and Polly sed it back It was unworthy Of her and of the story he was confiding in her

‘Tell

‘She was understanding and acceptance She was anger and rebellion and gallows hu for the right word ‘intense I don’t knoe’d met in normal life if we’d have even liked each other But then? Then she was all that I wanted, all that I needed We were going to hed softly, bitterly ‘The hubris of youth But it didn’t turn out the e planned I was so angry that she left me behind’

‘And now?’

‘And now I am a decade older That time is a memory, and Marie’ He sed ‘I don’t even think of her day to day I don’t think of the boy I was I took that tiot well, I left Provence, left France, went away to college and I reinvented myself’

‘You’re a survivor’

She stopped and turned to face hihtly in his; she allowed the other to drift up, to touch his cheek, to run along the defined line of his cheekbone and along the darkly stubbled jaw