CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PHASE ONE
When Diane and I were younger, we used to sit for hours imagining what heartbreak was supposed to feel like, discussing it with the dramatic seriousness only teenagers can manage. Back then we had been absolutely convinced that heartbreak was a temporary inconvenience rather than the soul-crushing experience it actually turns out to be. We had watched what must have been hundreds of chick flicks and high school romance movies together, and every single one of them made the entire process of getting over someone look ridiculously simple. According to those films, all a girl needed to recover from a devastating breakup was a few nights spent crying through a couple of sad movies, a generous supply of ice cream, and eventually she would move on to someone far ho
