Providence

by Caroline Kepnes

It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.

Nobody can kick your ass for what you think in your mind, not even your mom.

They speak the same language only different. What comes out of my mom’s mouth never affects what comes out of my dad’s mouth.

think Chloe and I are better at talking. What Chloe says always affects what I say.

People get excited about horrible things happening when they’re not happening to them. I’m no better, I remember staring at Kitty, wondering what it was like to be her, as if she was a painting and you were allowed to gawk at it.

his heart spreads out in the stupidest ways.

The boots are as pictured, impractical, but I wanted them, and when your best friend disappears, you get what you want in other ways, lesser ways.

“Ride the wave,”

he says. “Don’t wait for it. Don’t fear it. Just ride it.”

Everything is Jon.

We can talk about everything except us.

There’s always more time until there isn’t. You are born dying. Science could fix this.

Dreams are like exercise, no one wants to hear about it. Now

That’s what I do all night, all day. I miss him. He’s in my skin, my sleep, the unfinished feeling, the wonder.

Someone’s gotta be the iceberg and someone’s gotta be the sun.

Constellations exist because someone saw them, pointed, and someone else said, Yes, I see it too.

Your hands only know what they’re doing when they’re on my body was what she said to me that first day this plan was made. Was anything so wonderful ever said to a man, naked?

from the facts come the imagined. From the imagined comes the real.

Innocent people like dark things. It’s not rocket science, it’s that rule of opposites and attraction.

She breaks away from me, eyes first, like two skates rolling away. —

the idea of death and love being built upon disintegration of the individual and the individual interests. I

Want-to and have-to were never as united as they are right now,

Life makes you better after it makes you worse.

Lo’s kids call it ghosting, but really it’s just being a shithead.

It’s an unfair world for a woman like this, no doubt born to shitty people, then chastised. She’s defensive. I can practically hear her crowing at some dive bar, If there were jobs that pay better than welfare I’d get one.

love is hands, holding you.

Different kinds of love coexist in me. I think maybe I’m a sociopath. Maybe I have no heart. Maybe I have a big heart.

But isn’t it why you get married in the first place? So that someone can row the boat when you’re tired.

it’s a layered foundation and there’s no excavating what’s underneath.

This happens. Little spells. You don’t lose a person all at once. You lose them in parts.

but their life boils down to that one person out there, their person, and that’s what Chloe was, what she is, no matter what’s going on. That never changes.

that’s what everyone does when they come home, you try to find your past.

One minute you want to live here forever, the next you’re fucked up and you remember why you can’t live here.

It’s hot inside of me. Jon. I don’t know what to wear and I want to wear all my clothes at once, summer dresses and cutoffs, my old Tenley’s T-shirt that’s covered in paint and charcoal stains, my sexy panties, my granny panties, everything I ever owned, I want to put it on so he can take it off, so I can tell him where it comes from, what it means.

feel more engaged than I ever did when I was engaged.

I forgot how funny he is, I forgot about the laugh I have around him, the one from deep inside.

I carry your heart in my heart. She’s inside of me and she’s still out there. In a hospital, breathing and scared. I live in her now too. She misses me. She’s sad for me.

I hate things because I think I might love them.

We’re all wired to react to that sound. The dopamine rush that follows a notification. Someone wants you. Someone’s thinking of you. This feels good to us. It makes our bones tingle. It’s universal.

science. Loneliness is a specific monster.

and there is so much of you, more than you ever knew, more than anyone could ever know, anyone except your person, my person, Chloe.