What It's Like in Words: A Novel

by Eliza Moss

I read this thing that said butterflies are our body’s fight-or-flight. We think they mean love or attraction or whatever, but they actually mean danger. It’s your body warning you to run.

But please focus on what you think of him? You’re great. Is he good enough?

He laughed, and it was as unruly and brilliant as I remembered.

We hadn’t used words to define our relationship, but his directness was a comfort; he wasn’t the sort of person to be anywhere he didn’t want to be.

But it was a different kind of happiness, the kind that made me question if I had ever been happy before. And it meant more, I thought, that we were people to whom happiness didn’t come easily.

But my wardrobe is a diary; the clothes are words.

God, what is it about these ordinary-looking men and gorgeous women.

I was trading my body for the hope of his heart,

He smiled at me and I felt like I had come home.

He asked me what I fancied. Complicated question.

Sometimes the good bits of people aren’t the rule, they’re the exception.

People are people. They’re not things you can pick up and put down.