“Well, maybe you should try it and see what happens,” Molly said. “You know, the definition of insanity—”

“I know the definition of insanity, Molly, thanks.” Again I felt the guilt smidge, so I softened my answer. “Look, don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ve been rereading Pia Mellody.” I took the book out of my purse to prove it to her. “I’m trying to figure out what’s causing this, and how I can make it stop.”

I’d just begun reading a section on the emotional cycles of love addiction, which Pia described with formulaic certainty. As love addicts begin to develop a relationship with the object of their affection, she wrote, they stop seeing who that person actually is, but instead focus on a fantasy image, which they place like a beautiful mask over the head of the real human being.

Molly shook her head and smiled. “Read all you want,” she said with uncharacteristic authority. “But you’ll just end up a more informed prisoner.”

A chill passed through me. I thought about that for a moment before I opened the book to where I’d left off.

KATE AND I HAD BEEN SECRETLY SLEEPING TOGETHER for almost a month when I noticed a bruise on her upper thigh. “What’s that?” As the question left my mouth I feared I wouldn’t want to hear the answer.

“Oh. Blake,” she said. “He does that when I’m on top of him.”

Kate was a “best-looking” senior-superlatived, field-hockey-captained, Camel Light–smoking, Dead-bootleg-listening straight woman. She was also my freshman-year college roommate. Blake was a golden-dreadlocked, sharp-nosed surfer. He was a townie, and older than both of us. Kate had been sleeping with him for two weeks. I pretended not to mind.