When Laura Pratt’s long-distance partner of six years tells her ‘it’s over’ at a busy downtown train station, she is sent reeling, the breakup having come out of the blue. Her partner, meanwhile, closes himself off, refusing to acknowledge Laura and her requests for explanation. In the following days, months, and then years, Laura struggles to make sense of this loss, alone and filled with questions. She mourns him and takes comfort in whatever reassurances she imagines the universe is sending her, and in identifying value for her ordeal under every rock she flips. Here, Laura bares her soul as she brings alive the ups and downs of heartbreak - the recalled highs of when the relationship was in full, mutual bloom, and the long-time lows of her solitary vigil for Sam. Seeking to understand this freefall and how so many before her survived it, she draws on forces across time and form and uncovers literary, philosophical, scientific, and psychological accounts of how we human beings fall