Eric
I had been in love with Ava for almost two years before I ever touched her.
We met at a charity gala for ocean conservation, the kind of event where people in expensive suits pretended they cared about plastic in the sea while sipping thousand-dollar champagne. I was there because my company had sponsored a table and half a billion for the fund raiser. Ava was there because she had spent the last six months organizing the entire fundraiser on behalf of the marine biology nonprofit she worked for. She was twenty-four at the time, fresh out of her master’s program, wearing a simple navy dress that looked elegant on her and completely out of place among the glittering crowd. She had this quiet, earnest way of speaking about coral reefs and sea turtles that made the rest of the room fee
