flickering

quotes from this is how you lose her by junot diaz

"ana iris once asked me if i loved him and i told her about the lights in my old home in the capital, how they flickered and you never knew if they would go out or not. you put down your things and you waited and couldn't do anything really until the lights decided. this, i told her, is how i feel."

"some nights you have neuromancer dreams where you see the ex and the boy and another figure, familiar, waving at you in the distance. somewhere, very close, the laugh that wasn't laughter.
and finally, when you feel like you can do so without blowing into burning atoms, you open a folder you have kept hidden under your bed. The Doomsday Book. copies of all the e-mails and fotos from the cheating days, the ones the ex found and compiled and mailed to you a month after she ended it. dear yunior, for your next book. probably the last time she wrote your name.
you read the whole thing cover to cover (yes, she put covers on it). you are surprised at what a fucking chickenshit coward you are. it kills you to admit it but it's true. you are astounded by the depths of your mendacity. when you finish the Book a second time you say the truth: you did the right thing, negra. you did the right thing.
she's right; this would make a killer book, elvis says. the two of you have been pulled over by a cop and are waiting for officer dickhead to finish running your license. elvis holds up one of the fotos.
she's colombian, you say.
he whistles. que viva colombia. hands you back the Book. you really should write the cheater's guide to love.
you think?
i do.
it takes a while. you see the tall girl. you go to more doctors. you celebrate arlenny's ph.d. defense. and then one june night you scribble the ex's name and: the half-life of love is forever."