The Rules Do Not Apply

by Ariel Levy

The restaurants people wanted to get into were sleek and ferociously expensive—nobody talked about farm to table; nobody wanted to see rough-hewn reclaimed wood.

Daring to think that the rules do not apply is the mark of a visionary. It’s also a symptom of narcissism.

Order was restored. The window would always face an airshaft. The grim prognosis would be a mistake. Nothing really bad could happen to me in my movie, because I was the protagonist.

And who would my child be? What murderous degenerate would I cook up in there? (Would my baby be as bad as I was?)

I worried about the dozens of non-alcoholic beers she consumed; the sight of a pile of empty cans made me edgy.

I pictured him shy and contemplative, a tiny human Ferdinand the Bull sitting under a cork tree in my stomach.

I RESERVED AN UGLY JEALOUSY for friends and acquaintances who came from rich families and never worried about their financial fate, for whom money was ultimately symbolic: They had careers and were glad to get paid, but what they were really living off was a pond of money that had been filling up for decades, in some cases generations.

I saw him under my closed eyelids like an imprint from the sun.

Anything that would look good on a teddy bear appealed to her: She could never have enough corduroy or gingham.

What she needs? She’s the one we’re worried about? What does a girl have to do to be the victim around here?

It was fun. Sort of. The reason it was only sort of fun was that my life had collapsed.

because if this is a pattern, if there is a way that alcoholics from all over the world behave, maybe it wasn’t that Lucy didn’t love me enough to quit. Maybe all of this was not really her choice (which is to say not really her fault).

When we see each other it’s exciting but comfortable; words pour from our mouths like they’ve flowed from our fingers onto the computer. We are connected, united.