“What can I say about my first real relationship, the one I had with Raylan Thompson? That he was charming, and easy on the eyes... a brave military man like my father. However, if I was being honest with myself, he wasn’t my Pierre Curie or Frederic Joliot. I never felt the way the songs say you’re supposed to feel if you love someone. Sure, I really liked him, but I always knew I could live without him. Our relationship was unstable, like radioactive decay, or boron- 7—a substance that didn’t last, as though it had never been there at all.”