"Driving, with the top down, I'm reminded that I too can shift gears, face risk, handle inconvenience - and survive tragedy. My partner, eyes misting, says: 'You love that car. And your husband was an extraordinary man'".

"I'm a vampire, basically - going to bed around 8 or 9 a.m. and waking around 4 or 5 p.m. First dates usually go OK because they're in the evening, but complications quickly arise".

Two strangers meet on a train from Galway to Dublin in March 2020 and decide to go old school: no numbers exchanged, only a promise that they will meet up on the train two weeks later. And then a worldwide pandemic shuts down all of Ireland.

"He was everything a 10-year-old girl could ever hope for in a man. It was decided; I was in love. I started to wonder if the glow from my wedding dress would make him look washed-out. I began devising a plan in which he and I would end up '2gether 4ever', as all my notebooks stated".

A middle-school girl questions her sexuality when she finds herself having feelings for another girl. She turns to social media quizzes for answers.

"A few months later, I was in the psychologist's reception room, paying for my fourth really good cry, when a woman carrying a child walked in. I didn't recognize her at first, and then I remembered her face. 'Are you the wife of the guy my wife is having an affair with- I asked tactlessly. 'Yeah', she said. 'But we're not together anymore'".

"I don't remember his last name. He was handsome, with a nice smile and startlingly blue eyes. The sex was good, I think. We didn't know each other well. We never would".

"On this night, long after we had thrown in the towel on us, here we were again, crawling back into the ring. This time, though, it would be different. We just never imagined how different it would become, or how quickly".