She could forget the boy. She could forget Dom, waiting for her at the train station. She’d forget it all, with a little effort. 

But maybe some things could never be erased. Maybe they tinted some cellular level of your experience, and even if you scraped away whatever part was on the surface, the rot had already gotten beneath. 

The scratch on the painting, the itch in her eye. 

If that was true–if it had all counted. 

From The Guest (284)
Random House, 2023

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