You remind me of everything that followed. - Jhumpa Lahiri

She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.

That night when I went to the bathroom I only pretended to brush my teeth, for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well. I wet the brush and rearranged the tube of paste to prevent my parents from asking any questions, and feel asleep with sugar on my tongue.

He regretted only one thing: that he had not met her sooner, that he had not known her every day of his life.