"Are all the foods you ate enough to fill your plate?"

I left my home town with an ordinary man. Not more than a few inches taller than I. Early onset male pattern baldness and 8 years my senior; he made enough money to keep us comfortable. Three years later I would find myself enrolled in a college course titled "Sociology and the Family", and discover the degree to which I had become a post-high school statistic: Female. Emerging from a broken home and having a distant relationship with both of my parents, I was "finding comfort in an unchanging situation." Imagine statistical charts and data claiming some significant number of women who had grown up in broken homes, later forgoing college in a juvenile and submissive attempt to find consistency [typically depending on a man.] As I flipped pages, there were names and studies for and surrounding every mistake I'd made. I was dwarfed by this discovery.

I am Molly, #44783. I am among millions of others who have, both cross-culturally and over time, made this very mistake. I am in good company.

...And just like that, I moved out. Toppling head over heels into what would become a
three-year-low.

It didn't take more than three months. My contact with him became aggressively persistent. Each morning I awoke and took a knee, praying to the Gods of technology. Phone calls, text messages and emails had become nourishing; the things of my dreams. I can't quite recall how our friendship had blossomed into this deadly foxglove, but my memory of its momentum is as clear as if it were yesterday. We were present. We were unstoppable. As unstoppable as nature itself.

I was sitting on a cracked, unfinished hardwood floor in a pre-war apartment in downtown Buffalo. Pauly Issue was pressing Busch into my best friend's hand and she had reached penumbra, basking in the light of his attention. I introduced her. "This is Janelle. She is a gem." Eclipse. I quickly retreated. Text messages. Technology. Omnipotent technology.

Alone amongst the crowd. Ghost faces now. Ghost faces then. I felt the phone buzz. I was holding it. I was waiting for you.

"I love you" He says.
I tell him "I know."

I was breathless. In my mind I imagined myself throwing my body into traffic. Kicking the heads off every blooming flower. Breaking windows and punching walls. Kissing with passion. I was alive, finally, and with reason. I became what Buk would call, "A [rat] in the gravy of two gone quite mad. without a chance." You were completely out of reach. You were dangling 50 feet above my head. We needed each other.

The next morning, I remember I was driving R and I home from breakfast. We were in my car. My phone buzzes. "Who is that from?" I ask. It was from you. "Read it" I said.

"We should be together" he says.

"What is this all about?!"