Conversations with Friends

by Sally Rooney

Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought.

The sky was soft like cloth and birds ran over it in long threads.

Curled up in bed with my arms folded I thought bitterly: he has all the power and I have none.

We were driving along by the harbor, where the ships implied themselves as concepts behind the fog.

Now even that hope was gone. He knew that I loved him, that he was exploiting my tender feelings for him, and he didn’t care. There was nothing to be done.