I'm breaking it all down.
-- Narrator (Pages 17 - 20)

Importance: At the start of the story, the narrator announces the calculating work he is attempting. This neat, measured line mimics the man's attempt to remain in control as he pours over the affair. The simple sentence structure similarly illustrates the narrator's pained desire to create distance between himself and his memories of his lover. The line is also a first person repetition of third person line preceding. The repetition illustrates the man's inability to describe his experience in the third person, and his simultaneous hope that he can own his story in his own voice without becoming emotional.

You're with each other all day long and it keeps happening, the touches and smiles, and it adds up, it builds up...
-- Narrator (Pages 17 - 20)

Importance: As the narrator begins his accounting, his first person voice falls away, and the second person point of view takes over. This sentence marks this...