The Pisces

by Melissa Broder

But what would I have even done as a married person? What would I have done with Jamie in my space or me in his?

He made me feel like a special little pea.

Together or separate was always a big question for us. He wanted no more than two nights a week together. I pushed for four.

I am her she is me

She had always thought we were both safe from the crazy-woman disease: that desperation and need.

Nothing is more beautiful than the sex your ex-boyfriend is having with his new lover.

Aside from the broken nose, did they seem happy?”

The plight of the available woman and the unavailable man!

I never asked to be born on the planet. I never asked to exist. But I am here now so could you maybe at least try and help me enjoy my life?”

As long as you didn’t take anything from anyone or give any part of yourself away to another person, but you just sort of met the other person in space, good things could happen. You had to fall in love with quiet first.

You don’t believe that a person can be alone and be content with that?” asked Dr. Jude. “I don’t know. Probably not,” I said.

“I guess the gaps are sort of a reminder that, in love, things get disconnected,” I

I felt strangely high. I was still a little drunk, but there was definitely something narcotic about kissing him—just being around him—that made me feel like I wanted to keep doing it over and over.

and I wondered what most people my age were doing right now. Probably something boring involving children and applesauce.

If the will of the universe was the will of the universe, and if everything was happening as it was, then wasn’t everything you could possibly do all right?

“I want you to take as long as you need,” he said. “Take the whole night. Take forever.”

I wondered if real love always devolved into this: moments of non-sexiness.

the darkness that inevitably fell when you spent too much time basking in the sun of a man.

My moods were their own entities, even if no one could understand why they were there.