You stop asking shit like that. You realize that even posing the question is constructing one more layer of being unable to cope between you and the awful truth, and that you've only done it because you think you were supposed to. You give into the grief and you come out of it later. Or you don't.

[ "300% more intense than necessary": quite possibly the subtitle of Claire DeWitt's future memoirs. Other possible subtitles include "probably understandable if you choose not to take any advice from this walking wreck of a human being" and "please stop chain smoking." ]