He senses a certain receptivity in her expression, like she's gathering information about his feelings, something they have learned to do to each other over a long time, like speaking a private language.

It's not like this with other people. Well, I like you a lot more than other people.

Her gaze unsettles him like it used to, like looking into a mirror, seeing something that has no secrets from you.

When she touches him spontaneously, applying a little pressure to his arm, or even reaching to brush a piece of lint off his collar, he feels a rush of pride, and hopes that people are watching them.

Is the world such an evil place, that love should be indistinguishable from the basest and most abusive forms of violence? Outside her breath rises in a fins mist and the snow keeps falling, like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistakes.

I love you. I am not just saying that, I really do. Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she's aware of this now, while it's happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.

You know I love you. He didn't say anything else. She said she loved him too and he nodded and continued driving as if nothing at all had happened, which in a way it hadn't.

You can love more than one person, she said. That's arguable. Why is it any different from having more than one friend? You're friends with me and you also have other friends, does that mean you don't really value me? I don't have other friends, I said.