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No one has sympathy for you when your life looks this good from the outside. It’s like complaining that your enormous boobs make it hard to find clothes that fit properly. Or whining that you’re afraid of heights when you’re at the top of an ivory tower.
When you’re “perfect,” you never truly are. You don’t cross a finish line of hotness. It’s a constant battle of maintenance that involves constant failure, and the goalposts are perpetually moving.
It shows a picture of Grayson and his Marvel costar in one of the dark red booths of the Hollywood restaurant—the Chaplin booth, where we have so often sat together. They’re staring adoringly at each other. I know this doesn’t prove that he was cheating on me, but I still feel vindicated.
“You said he looks like a Disney prince that cries after sex.”
She laughs and it feels so strangely familiar and good. I know how pathetic it sounds, but to be honest, I haven’t had a real friend in a while. Not like this. Not the kind you get paired with in sentences like every time I run into you two, or who feel comfortable enough to take a bite of your food without asking. It’s an intimacy I’ve missed.
I lead an almost delusionally contented life, me. All the rushing around, hustling and bustling—not for me. I want good wine, good food, and some good sex. Until I tire of sex in my old age, and then I’ll care about some good orthopedic shoes and say endearingly inappropriate things to my young, fit masseuse.”
“You’ve a bit of a stick up your arse in your real life as well, don’t ya?” asks Kiera, hands on her hips.
Fantasizing about who I might be has always been more interesting than fantasizing about who I might be with.
Because it was too hard to see my world for its good when its bad was so much louder and more distracting.
Her body looks like it’s endured time, lived through more. Like she may have nursed her kids, but also taken up running.
“No kids in my other life, huh?” she asks. “No,” I answer truthfully. She nods, and then says, “Well. Glad I’m in this one then. They’re really cute.”
The answer to how is unsatisfying. The truth is … we live. We can’t spend every moment treasuring the things we love. We still get mad at the dog for tracking mud through the house even though one day, we would give anything to have her muddy paws back on our white carpet. We still roll our eyes at our parents’ needy voicemails even though one day, those recorded moments will be all we have left.
People talk about nepo babies, but they forget about the blank canvases the industry picks to Pollock all over.
“I can’t believe you waited so long to eat. You’re awfully good at it,” says Kiera.
Maybe this is what happened. The two versions of me made the same, opposite choice at the same time. And it caused my universe to split into two.
Who lets Johnny Depp out of the house looking like he does? Or, honestly, who lets him out of the house period? He used to be so hot. Not the point.
She wore socks with tennis shoes, as if she’d ever need to worry about a blister again. So strange that she had protected herself from a little discomfort like that, but that it wouldn’t matter anyway.
exhale loudly and say, “Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of. What if the universe collapses?” “I don’t think you need to worry about that, you narcissist. Let’s watch your movie, shall we?”
It’s about all of this. The real reason I’m crying is because I am already mourning this life. I am afraid that I’ll have to say goodbye, and I don’t know if I can live through it all over again.
Meg, I always find that, when it comes to funerals, it’s best to wear something you’ll never wear again. I thought you might hate this.
I am so desperate for pieces of Aimee that I consume her words the way a Hungry Hungry Hippo goes after little white marbles.
I love when an author uses a simile like this... Its so campy lol
Whoa, why is that so hot? He’s like Captain von Trapp without the late-wife baggage and war trauma.
“Seems like you listen really well,” I say. “You leave me no choice.” He leans forward then, his lips close to my ear, where he whispers, “You never shut the fuck up.”
But now, my mind has found what it couldn’t in meditation; I am thinking in colors and feelings and music and abstract imagery. I’m not awake or asleep. I’m experiencing something new.
“I think she should do what she wants. I only hope she lets me be a part of it.”
It’s so incomplete. It’s as if my favorite show got canceled without wrapping up all the storylines. But that’s what grief is, isn’t it? Expectation and resolution slashed, leaving unfinished conversations behind.
“I’m going to sit by the pool for a bit,” I say. Apparently melancholic sunbathing is my go-to activity when grieving.
But there are people out there who I can love and like in new ways. And if my little brush with surreality proved anything, it’s that there are infinite lives and possibilities.
