She had us trade cardigans. She said it was an exercise in empathy. 

If you get this far, that means that things are all, more or less, going according to plan.

He was in love with his friend Faye, had known her since elementary school.

I was only doing what she asked:  Not listening. 

The Christian Movie Theatre is mainly for fans of poorly translated morality tales, the violent ends of saints and so forth.

Despite your better judgement, you click on his profile and then on the most recent post: a picture of him smiling on a white slope with his arm wrapped around a remarkably average, yet still somehow traditionally hot (not pretty, just hot) snow bunny.

There was something that she wished to start, and when she started it, she figured, her life would take on new meaning. But in this moment in time, she ate breakfast bars all hours of the day and worried about money.

I count the number of murderers in the class.

I thought, this message probably killed its messenger, strung out on finding its way home.

Nick your shin shaving, stare idly at the blood coursing down your foot and down the drain, and maybe this is how you do it, empty out all your insides until your shapeless skin is all that’s left.

I wanted to be “that girl,” but my new high-waisted pants from the Marais were already unbuttoned once.

A girl named after a country wore a metallic jumpsuit and gave tarot readings.

Brian was psyched too. Not about her requests—Tom Waits was more his groove—but about where things seemed to be headed.

I didn’t know why I never wanted to have sex. Or I did know, but what I knew was a lie, or maybe the Biggest Truth of All and I would rather die than admit it to myself.

I have my tee already halfway over my head, blocking my eyes, when I feel a hand on my forearm, yanking me toward the other end of the field. “You can’t do that. Put it back on.”

To be naked on the beach after a storm is something special—the salt and the petrichor and the hum of being unsettled that maybe the torrential rains caused damage, that maybe there were nearby ships that will never make it to harbor.

Violet and I sit in her bed a while and talk. She shows me how to unhook and snake a bra through a sleeve.

“When Zac started writing the poems, I didn’t think it would get to this.”

I can see him weakening, even if he can’t.

“Foresee this, I did not,” Yoda commiserated. But he knew what he had to do. He just didn’t know if he could do it. 

I’m not trying to justify myself. I’m trying to tell you something.

By now I have learned that sometimes, as Tricia pummels away at the backs of my thighs, I can tolerate a memory or two of George.

Mississippi Man and I been dating for a few months now and we ain’t said it yet.

Under what circumstances do we find ourselves here?

“Yvonne?” she called out.