The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear.

Assumptions are the death of a relationship. If you think you know what’s going on inside someone else’s head, think again. We imagine that love gives us the power to read one another’s mind, when all we are really doing is reading our own. It’s a great self-defense mechanism but no substitute for actual communication. The very best way to know what’s really on someone’s mind is also the riskiest: you have to ask them.