I know that now in my body and not just in my head.

You can be liked precisely for the ways you let yourself be used, and that kind of being-liked is not affection at all.

It is appetite wearing affection’s coat, and it keeps you warm exactly as long as you keep feeding it.

The trouble with a fire you feed with yourself is that the warmth is real, which is what makes it so hard to walk away from; you are genuinely warm right up until the moment you notice there is less of you than there used to be.

And Derek, my husband, who should have been the one person at that table whose first loyalty was to me, would give me a small uncomfortable smile when the joke was told, and then he would let it pass.