How to break in: with a name, a statement. - Nadine Gordimer

Es imposible dominar todos los temores y las pérdidas con antelación. Siempre hay fuentes de desolación que no se toman en consideración porque nadie sabe cuáles serán.

Among the group of people waiting at the fortress was a schoolgirl in a brown and yellow uniform holding a green eiderdown quilt and, by the loop at its neck, a red hot-water bottle. (First lines)

You said: "...and I'm between two girls at the moment.' What exactly had led up to this statement that could have come at any time, that I had been ready for so long I began to forget it would ever come, and that you had been waiting to say for a specific length of time I could not know?