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Rage-cry later in the privacy of your bedroom while listening to The Smiths.
Her messy hair lent her an air of zaniness. She looked like a scribbled-in-graphite drawing.
Penny had never had a cigarette in her life, and if they did smoke together Penny would probably have a coughing fit that lasted forever and ended on an audible fart.
Penny swallowed the rest of her questions: whether he felt like a ghost trolling the living, mining their existence for ideas; whether or not he got lonely watching other people the way Penny did.
Lola was long and thin in the way that certain beautiful people “forgot” to eat or else only nibbled on aesthetically pleasing morsels like Ladurée macarons or sliced kiwi.
Her breath tasted of green peppers and cigarettes and her confidence was mind-blowing. His mother used to say you shouldn’t marry anyone you wouldn’t want to divorce, and he understood that now. Lorraine was the emotional equivalent of a hollow-point round; the exit wound was a shit show.
It was all quite possibly the most idiotic circumstance to bring a baby into. A blameless, chubby nugget of person caught in the middle of two selfish screw-ups.
Penny believed with her whole heart that there were moments—crucial instances—that defined who someone was going to be. There were clues or signs, and you didn’t want to miss them.
It was so much fun to write about who you could be.
“It’s a privilege, and part of acknowledging that privilege is doing it honorably. Create diverse characters because you can. Especially ones that aren’t easy to write. A character that scares you is worth exploring. Yet if you breathe life into a character and it comes to you too easily—say you’re writing from the viewpoint of a black man in America and you’re not one? Think hard about where your inspiration is coming from. Are you writing stereotypes? Tropes? Are you fetishizing the otherness? Whose ideas are you spreading? Really consider how you transmit certain optics over others. Think
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She wondered if the rest of early adulthood would be like this—avoiding roommates, getting ripped off for bad fusion food, and the peculiar loneliness of being smothered by people she didn’t want to spend time with.
Jesus, give a girl WebMD and she starts thinking she’s a physician.
Rage is my usual fear response.”
Just because Jude was fast and loose with her personal life and her therapy sessions didn’t mean the same setup worked for everyone. Some people’s coping mechanisms were all about festering and secrecy and ruminating until you grew yourself a nice little tumor in your heart with a side of panic attack. Different strokes.
Sam buttoned the shirt all the way up to the top. Then unbuttoned the top button. And then buttoned it again. He sighed. He looked like a LinkedIn profile pic.
Maybe they could be friends when she was old enough to count as a person.
Instead of writing, Penny snack-crastinated.
She was a monster. A monster who was flat as a board with no ass. In fact, the only thing she had going on in the curves department was an enormous cystic pimple on her chin that hurt when she touched it.
“To hell with all these other chicks I meet every day who are hot, not scared of sex, and are rocket scientists when it comes to flirting, I choose you, Penelope Lee. You have an inventive, not-at-all-gross way with snacks, and your spelling is top-notch.”
Penny never looked the way she thought she did in her head, like how your recorded voice sounds positively vile when you hear it out loud.
Sam wanted to tell Penny everything. He wanted a record of his thoughts and feelings and stories to exist with her. Like a time capsule for this strange period of his life. With her, he felt less lonely. He hadn’t even realized he was lonely. He hadn’t let himself.
Penny was crazy about glasses as a thing. They were so much better than contacts. Why touch your own eyeballs when you could accessorize your face?
Could he grieve things that weren’t real in the first place?
Was there any other species on earth that prized popularity the way people did? Did lemurs hang around preening in a never-ending competition of pretending to be over it? Humans were gross.
with a face like a weak handshake—he
Penny was dressed in last night’s outfit with the addition of half a quesadilla, perched jauntily on her chest like a cheese-filled piece of statement jewelry.
As far as she was concerned, alcohol was a miracle. She felt captivating.
She was getting better and better at interfacing with real-life humans on a near-daily basis.
“Whew,” said Anthony. “It’s hotter than a pot of neck bones out there.” It was a 100-degree fall day.
It’s fucking art, man,” he said, scowling. “You don’t choose it. It chooses you. If you waste that chance, your talent dies. That’s when you start dying along with it.” • • •
Oh God—he was so pretty that it was unfathomable that he could even see her.
She wished she could explore his body and inspect him. Learn him and memorize him. That way she’d know what to miss when he was gone. Sam was heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful. It made her heart hurt.
“I know I love someone when I can’t remember what they look like in any real way. I can never seem to recall whether they’re handsome or ugly or if other people think they’re cute. All I know is that when I’m not with them and I think about them, where their face should be is this big cloud of good feelings and affection.”
Loving someone was traumatizing. You never knew what would happen to them out there in the world. Everything precious was also vulnerable.
Penny thought about how certain physicists believed that reality is a simulation created by future civilizations purely for entertainment. There was no way to know who was running the show. To be the hero, you had to decide it was you.
“Sometimes talking to you is like accidentally clicking on a pop-up with autoplay video.”
She was so excited she wanted to punch him.
And for all the people waiting for permission to level up enough before they start working on something big and scary—just go in. Don’t be like me.
