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As the boat bobs, she ponders where to cut. In movies, idiots always cut into their palms. Why you’d ever do that, she has no idea, because that’ll fuck up your hand. You need your hands.
“I make a good cup,” Guerrero says. “I want to fuck this coffee.”
They often say that cancer is a battle, and that is true, she supposes: though the truth of it is more complicated than she understood at first. Once, she believed in that battle she was one of the fighters: as if she and cancer were neatly matched up in gladiatorial combat, and whoever had the most diligence and vigor would win. She merely had to outlast the disease. But that’s not the truth. The truth wasn’t that she was a fighter, but rather that she was the battlefield. She was the town that would endure bombing. She was the field whose trenches would be run through with craters and
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Though, she thinks, that’s the thing about lies, isn’t it? The truth requires only itself, but a lie always needs infrastructure. It needs support. It needs other lies to hold it up, a realm of artifice to keep it running. It’s why lying is so much goddamn work: you often have to craft an entire fantasy realm just to convince somebody of a single untrue thing.
“That’s a bummer. Why do they hate you?” “A lot of reasons. But three—I think, three big ones.” “Let’s hear them.” “Number one, I’m a Democrat.” “Like, the political party.” “Yes, the—how do you not know that?” “I know that; I just wondered if that was maybe a new slang term for like guy who fucks cats or something. They just—they don’t like that you’re a Democrat?”
He opens his arms. “I don’t usually do this,” she says. “Hugging people.” “You just hugged Gabby.” “Gabby and I embraced. Because we fuck each other and love one another. That said, you did good, Underwear Man.” And she hugs him. It doesn’t even hurt. It even feels a little bit nice. A little bit.
