Explaining romance to Caleb is like teaching algebra to bricks, though you can at least build something with the bricks when you’re done, I don’t expect anything less than a mere scientific shrug. ‘It’s just biochemistry,’ he says. ‘I could plot it on a graph for you.’ You don’t have all the data, I say, testing a hypothesis. ‘And you’re not objective,’ he tells me, ‘so, to which bias do we skew?’ I want to shake him and scream, some things just can’t be measured. How about we call it spooky action at a distance with a sensual slant?
I was standing over the corpse of my last relationship when the detective walked in. The world deconstructed under her gaze, a breed of aggressive disapproval that begged every inch of information from the scene. I felt compelled. I’ve been drawing conclusions, I told her. ‘Well then,’ she said, an iron reed, ‘show me what you’ve got.’ I passed her the little notebook I’d been carrying around. Taking a look at the cartoon heart I’d rendered, torn in two, she smiled from the inside. ‘Classic,’ she said, ‘I see it all the time. Obviously suicide.’ I’d fallen in love.
A Few Short Words 