You Are Here

by David Nicholls

She had never been cool, but she wasn’t clueless either. People had told her she was funny, and while she recognised that this could be a trap, she was never intentionally sarcastic or spiteful and far more likely to mock herself than others.

Sometimes, she thought, it’s easier to remain lonely than present the lonely person to the world, but she knew that this, too, was a trap, that unless she did something, the state might become permanent, like a stain soaking into wood.