0%

There are exactly eleven ways in which you can love a woman. Or as Richard Yates claimed, there are eleven kinds of loneliness. I'm just saying.

Let me put it another way.

Last night - almost all the night, I laid awake thinking: this is what it feels like to be 0%. It was a new sensation - mixed with what, just hours ago, felt like the whole wide breathing world.

Short breaths. Then long. Breaths that echoed don't stop. Breaths to take your breath away.

How to wrap your mind around that?

The sweetest teacher you ever had hands you the grade: 0%. All the while thinking you were the apple in her eye.