You (You, #1)

by Caroline Kepnes

Living is harder than dying,

“All right,” I say and I go on, stronger than Celine Dion’s heart.

my right eye is a useless blob

Ew

When you bend slightly to warm your hands over the fire, I have an uncontrollable urge to jump through the window and enter you.

Oh

She’s not grateful to have an extra home in a place where the biggest danger is Taylor Fucking Swift.

I cross over the walkway built by some family with something against walking on white sand

Don’t make a baby if you’re not capable of unconditional love.

It was summer, drunk girls drown, it happens, her family accepts that she is never coming home—and I walk toward the water. It is winter. Sad girls walk into the water to die. It happens.

Peach is heavy because of the rocks in her pockets, because of the weight of her misery.

he could be a serial killer or the nicest guy in the world, but there is no middle ground for this dude.

Maybe someday I’ll even be a shrink.

Thatd be horrible

she smells like ham sandwiches and rubbing alcohol. I like her tits.

“Do you have a cold, Joe? Or did you just have too much sauce?”

Lmao

Karen Minty fucking loves commercials—and she flips the bird at the TV. “Bite me, BK. BK fries suck, right, Joe?”

Cringe

You’re an onion and Karen’s a Maraschino cherry and I love you because onions are more complicated than cherries. I’m doomed.

You never repeat yourself because you’re creative and Karen is not and she pinches my nipple.

Maybe Dan Fox loves Karen Minty, but I don’t love Karen Minty.

“Lies don’t pave the way to joy,”

I picture Karen Minty on all fours with your little body hanging out of her mouth.

Am I nuts? I could just keep eating Karen’s eggs and Karen’s pussy.

In my mind, when I’m inside of her, she calls me a rock star and a cock star and I haven’t felt this alive in years.

uHHH

the headphones jam my ears, pieces of dime-store junk, and I yank them out of my phone and hurl them at the window across from me. People are looking at me and people can fuck off.

Dramatic

“You think I’m some doormat piece-of-shit chick that you can bang and fuck as you please? You think I’m some fucking rag doll?” “Yes,” I say, not missing a beat. “That’s exactly what you are.” And it’s true.

SAVAGE

You are a whore and Nicky is a prick and sweet Karen, the cum Dumpster,

I don’t have a mouse in my house. I have a fucking pig.

OOF

His breath is made of onions, raw onions.

“You don’t fuck over Karen Elise Minty.”

Farty

I take a swig of Jack and open the front page of a self-help book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

Oh my godd

I wake up first. I go into your bathroom, into your tub and I piss all over the floor of the shower and mark my place, my home, you.

What the fuck

You’re like a child in the best way

Ew

you leave a trail of bread crumbs wherever you go

Lmao

“I’m just going to say this and I can’t look at you when I say this. I like using your toothbrush because I like having you inside of me and I’m sorry I know that’s weird and gross.”

Oh she NASTY

I cry and watch Pitch Perfect and sing along with the Barden Bellas.

I don’t want to be a person who knows the name of a fictional a cappella group in a chick flick but that’s what love has done to me.

“What goes on at a Dickens Festival?” she asks and her eyes are as open as Karen Minty’s pussy.

I’d almost forgotten that I ordered a DVD of Pitch Perfect; you only watch the download, but you should own what you love, it’s that simple.

I’ve known Thanksgivings without turkey; my dad prefers beef.

I think of something I love about you with each step

Damn

Beck loves me in her own way, with a toothbrush, a robe.

Beck looked up solipsistic in the dictionary that night. And now her dictionary is marked with all kinds of words that came out of my mouth and into her world.

You are afraid of the Box of Beck.

Round and round we go, one minute you are afraid, one minute you are going to kill me, one minute you think I am going to kill you, one minute you are the victim of my evildoing (LOL) and one minute I am the victim because you are going to kill me (LOL).

LOL

“Would you please shut the fuck up already? Do you hear me calling you names? How do you think I feel when I walk in here and find you in my wall?

The gaslighting

“And let’s be honest, Beck. I could just as easily say I’m done with you for snooping around in my stuff.”

Omg!!!!

I remember last month around this time, you got violent and screamed at me for throwing away a three-day-old burrito that was stinking up your fridge. The next day, you got your period and you kissed me on the cheek.

Wtf beck

You will settle down and I will get through this and I pretend you are a lion at the zoo. I am the zookeeper and I guard the door and I pray that I don’t have to use my fist on you but if I do, you will recover, probably. For now, my job as the zookeeper is to stand by and wait. You’ll wear yourself out soon enough, the same way you wear yourself out on my dick.

Wtf

“What’s wrong with you?” “I love you.” “This isn’t love. This is sick.” “This is our everythingship,” I say. Our word.

“You’re a sick person and sick people need help, Joe.” I am healthy and you are a trollop;

You’re not always attentive with your razor and sometimes I think the lady who waxes you doesn’t have a license to wax anyone because your thighs are often coated in little red dots that don’t feel good against my nice, clean legs.

Boohoo

You call me a sick fuck and you groan and you’re a slob and slobs suffer.