Truly Madly Guilty

by Liane Moriarty

Living on less sleep gave her a not-unpleasant, mildly sedated feeling. She felt detached from all aspects of her life. She had no time anymore to feel. All that time she used to waste feeling, and analyzing her feelings, as if they were a matter of national significance.

Dakota had not properly understood until recently how her brain was a private space with only her in it. Yesterday she’d looked at her teacher and screamed the F-word in her head. Nothing happened. Nobody knew she’d done that. Nobody would ever know.

It made her feel less guilty but at the same time it made her feel desolate. “Desolate” was the most perfectly beautiful word for how she felt. Sometimes she repeated it over and over to herself like a song: desolate, desolate, desolate.

something. “It’s a free country?” Barney shot him a concerned look and then suddenly trotted off, as if a decision had been reached

She’d never spoken about it to Sam. How could she put that into words? “Sometimes our sex life feels incestuous and religious and ever so slightly yucky, Sam, don’t you think? Any suggestions?”

she’d often feel relieved when they both rolled over to face different directions, because honestly, who could be bothered? She suspected that he felt exactly the same mixture of hurt and relief, and the thought of him feeling relief about not having to have sex with her hurt her further, even though she felt the same way, and so it went on.

Maybe Erika was her wolf tone. Maybe Clementine’s life would have lacked something subtle but essential without her in it: a certain richness, a certain depth.

“It’s about making a choice to make your marriage your priority, to, kind of, put that at the top of the page, as your mission statement or something.”

she wondered what sort of person Erika could have been, would have been, should have been, if she’d been given the privilege of an ordinary home. You could jump so much higher when you had somewhere safe to fall.