I need you to hate me, I tell her. I don’t know why. I doubt it matters. I just, I’m not comfortable with love, it feels untenable, slippery. Hatred you can hold. You can mould. It’s elemental, material. I can be shaped from hatred. Love is like air with the oxygen sucked out, only atoms apart from suffocation. I love you though, now that I’ve made it sound hollow. So, maybe it’s an acceptance thing. Maybe I can’t accept other people’s feelings. I believe they’re real, only, there’s always going to be that distance, the unimpeachable distance of individuality.