Love Minus Eighty

The guaranteed cure for heartbreak: find pain that’s much, much worse.

It's funny. Friendships are Catch twenty-twos when you're single and in your thirties. Friends are your life rafts. You try to help each other meet people, you confide in each other, you spend Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, all those emotional land-mine holidays together. But sooner or later one of you is going to meet someone and be gone into the world of couples.

I’m just–” She wanted to say “not in the mood,” but that was not only a cliché but a vast understatement. She was dead.

Why was it so unlikely that you could meet your soul mate by hitting her with your vehicle? Why was it more likely you’d meet her at your cousin’s wedding?

The mind always found its way back to baseline.

The profile’s the key, the absolute key to modern dating. If you can get quality people to look at your profile, it becomes a numbers game. The more views, the more hits. The more hits, the more the odds climb that you’ll find a compatible mate.

She had nine hundred thirty-one viewers at the moment. Another sixty-nine, and sponsorships would kick in.

Because I don’t really want to fall in love. Nathan is safe because he’s unattainable.

This is the future,” Lycan said. “Connecting people to each other directly.

Right leg gone? Her right leg? She couldn’t see anything except the man hanging over and a gold-coloured ceiling, high, high above. “This is a hospital?” she asked. “No, no. A dating centre.

What?" The dread in her tone told Rob she knew what. "How much longer?" "Thirty seconds." She laughed with a panicked urgency. "I just tried to nod. I can't feel my body, but I keep reaching for it, you know?" Rob nodded, feeling guilty he was able to. "How about this? I'll just tell you when I'm nodding, or shaking my head, or punching you." "Oh, no," Rob laughed, "are you planning on punching me often?" "We'll see." Rob couldn't help glancing at the timer, though he knew it would only make Winter more aware of what was about to happen. Seven seconds. "I keep expecting this to get easier, taht it will start to feel as if I'm going to sleep. But it doesn't. Maybe it's not possible to get used to dying." Rob reached out to comfort her, then remembered it was forbidden and drew back. If not for the surveillance, Rob would have reached under the silver cover and taken her hand, cold and stiff as it would have been.