Hidden Bodies (You #2)

by Caroline Kepnes

That fucking mug haunts me. I understand that there are consequences. I am not unique; to be alive is to have a mug of urine out there. But I can’t forgive myself for screwing up, like some girl “forgetting” a cardigan after a one-night stand. The mug is an aberration. A flaw. Proof that I’m not perfect, even though I’m usually so precise, so thorough. I haven’t hatched a plan to retrieve it, but Amy makes me wish I had. I want the world clean for us, Lysol fresh.

There’s been an atomic meltdown and we’re the only two people left on Earth and this is why people shouldn’t commit suicide, because maybe, someday, you might get to sit in the shade with someone who is refreshingly different!

A guy in a suit emerges from a deli across the street with fresh roses, running, trying, believing. Idiot.

But there is nobody here to answer the fucking question and this is why people have small dogs, why they trap them in their efficient apartments, because sometimes you need another living thing, you need eyes on you, even if the eyes belong to a fucking Pomeranian.

He looks at me like I’m insane. “Are you serious right now?” I look at him like he is sane. “Yes.”

Barry Stein, who says Milo’s ideas have tremendous potential but pats Forty on the back and tells him that his ideas need work. These are two very different statements, which is idiotic because at the end of the day, either you have something or you don’t.

“Every story begins as a story,” he says, as if this makes any sense.

We both agree that our respective works are genius. Forty is blown away by my vision in Fakers and I give it right back to him. I claim to be impressed by structure in The Mess even though The Mess is incoherent nonsense.

This is the Summer of Love and I have to believe in the Fall of Love even though it has an ominous tone.

It’s the little things that make you want to kill someone, the way Milo drinks Diet Dr Pepper and ties his Jewfro in a bun and lifts his shirt to show off his stomach and wipes his glasses down even though they’re not dirty.

“What do you mean?” Milo asks. And it’s funny to me that I was going to kill him a few days ago.

You can’t tell if they’re renovating or starting from scratch and sometimes rich white people remind me of teenagers who can’t stop picking at their scabs.

“Old Sport, you should come to Vegas. We can bang out a new script, Hangover meets Hangover!” The Hangover can’t meet the Hangover because the Hangover is the Hangover and I tell him no, maybe next time, definitely next time.

And my child shares his genetic coding and this is why we have war, because no gene pool is perfect.

I whistle to him. He ignores me. Fucker. I laugh. What is wrong with me? It’s a puppy. It’s not a fucker. But then, maybe it is. Babies can be assholes and puppies can be fuckers. But you accept the risk when you make a baby, when you adopt a dog.