Chapter 7When it came to love, Jay’s experience was limited to impassioned poetry of desire and loss, Gothic novels about betrayal and all-consuming emotion, and of course, Shakespeare. He could quote all the experts, chapter and verse, and knew about the ways love could build or destroy, could inspire creation and death, could even flip a man inside out and change him into something unrecognizable. In reality, Jay had absolutely no knowledge of love and he had no idea what to expect from it. He didn’t know that it was possible to be so happy that eating and sleeping became a chore that distracted from the general state of bliss. He didn’t know it was possible to smile all day until his face literally hurt. He didn’t know that the burden of school and work could be reduced to something no
