"It was very wearing," Mia said. "He was very polite about it, but just being near him exhausted me. The worst part was that there’s no clean break between me and my earlier life. My romantic life, my sexual life. I could remember how exciting it had been. How flattering. Being pursued by some large energetic insistent good-looking boy. How it felt when I let him catch me. The mnemonic made it all a lot worse."