Ghosts

by Dolly Alderton

“Is she a pagan?” “No, just neurotic,” I said. “It’s

“What’s there to be frightened of?” “All of it. You can communicate and synchronize with each other in a way men never will be able to. You have tides within your own body. You’re nurturing and magical and supernatural and sci-fi. And all we can do is…jizz on our own stomachs and hit each other.”

“No, I mean, the future you decide with a person is different for every person, isn’t it? It’s not like you decide what you want, then someone else fits into that.

‘I love you’ is the relationship equivalent of Level 17 of Tomb Raider 2 for a lot of millennial men.”

Nostalgia: Greek compound combining nostos (homecoming) and álgos (pain). The literal Greek translation for nostalgia is “pain from an old wound.”

“Lola, what’s your love language?” Franny asked, her chin coyly resting in the palm of her hand. Lola shrugged. “I don’t know. Anal, probably.”

I once read that the definition of love is ‘being the guardian of another person’s solitude.’

I would make a strong case for the argument that every adult on this earth is sitting on a bench waiting for their parents to pick them up, whether they know it or not. I think we wait until the day we die.

“Sort of magic, isn’t it? To know that we could meet the most exciting person in the world, but they’d never be able to recreate the history you and I have. What a unique superpower we have over each other.”

didn’t realize you were in so much pain, I thought you were just horrible.”