When I asked years later if you had a sex addiction and you said, No, do you? I hesitated before responding no, because I was thinking, Only to you.

I’m fascinated by the heart's struggle to remain content with any one thing—even when there are no other choices within permissible reach—but I'd like to stop experiencing it firsthand.

I closed my eyes and imagined bones buried just beyond the volcano, on the other side of the hill.

Snapchat filter. Left.

My dad had purchased the car for me a year before from a disillusioned actress in the San Fernando Valley. When we arrived at her home to pick up the car, the actress let us in and began sobbing. She said she was moving to Mexico, away from all “this,” waving dramatically out the window to the valley below.

People like when their opponents are sick and twisted. It’s easy to win an argument if your enemies are medically immoral people. 

but you know there is a Truth Moment coming, and sure enough the next morning he says hey and you say hey and he says sorry about last night

You’re probably thinking these things happened a very long time ago, but as a matter of fact it was just yesterday, and yet somehow we are all old and married with children now, even the former supermodel

Your date’s cologne smells like rancid wine, which should be a good enough reason to bail, but it’s only hour two and you’ve made a commitment.

He doesn’t seem to think I’m a handful. I can tell by his texts.

I was still pouting over hometown boy, and neck-deep in an article about foiled wallpaper when I got a Facebook message from Preston. Could we get together? 

In the train carriage, we’re hot in our furs, brooding and half-drunk.

Like many who quit drinking, my mother became a proselytizer for sobriety.

The other half was the memories of the end. The time Teddy had threatened to burn the only copy of my novel.

Do I break up with my Venezuelan surfer and move back to Alaska? I debated. Or bring him to the U.S. and marry him?

The humid air mingling with my warmth stretches my sense of self this morning. Settling again into my day, I guide myself to the kitchen to make my breakfast. The routine comforts me. I’m tragically

He says he feels like all his problems would be solved if he stopped going to that bar.

he flashed a toothless grin, all James Dean California Cool, a tan blonde blue-eyed surfer type. I imagined him as the boys Lana sang about.

The artist class?

He stole my Tupperware, the largest one in a glass Pyrex set.

His white face is red. Mom taught me that people turn red like tomatoes when they’re drunk. I look around and see pink and red faces all around me.

Sex would remain forever yoked to this school shooting, grief combined with an uncanny moment of clarity: life won’t be the same after this, regardless.

PS: My computer is really going nuts. If I can use one of your spare ones, I may need it sooner rather than later.

Sophie had recently gone through a break up. I don’t remember her ex's name. I do remember the striking legibility of the word VIOLENCE.