When We Were Bright and Beautiful

by Jillian Medoff

You can’t choose who you love, but you can choose how you behave.

Which is the funny thing about families, no matter how much cake you have, someone will always feel starved.

Women who don’t see the world through the lens of men’s needs are naïve or willfully blind.

Talking to Eddie makes me feel sneaky. Like I’m getting away with something by presenting myself as a wholesome girl capable of wholesome love when I’m a dirty degenerate, a con artist who used to fuck a married man—a man with children, no less. That I’ll end up with a Midwestern Eddie and become a book-loving wife is a laughable idea.

I pick up my fork and dig in. In New Haven, I eat with gusto. Here, I eat tortillas. I eat eggs. I eat sausage. I eat provolone cheese, hash browns, and hot cherry peppers. I can feel my scrawny body filling out, growing healthy and strong. I feel alive. I eat, I eat, I eat.

For the next thirty minutes, I’m a wreck. How do wholesome people date? Finally, I decide to make a joke. We’ll laugh about our awkwardness, the horror of striking up conversation. But when I turn to speak to him, I realize that the whole time I’ve been spinning, he’s been asleep behind his stupid sunglasses.

When you feel so much, the doctor says, you get confused. So your feelings may be about other feelings than the feelings you’re feeling.

The real rich never talk about money or flash it around. The middle-rich, newly rich, and never-rich are the ones who need to show off.”

I feel like I’ve made a mistake that needs correcting, but can’t remember what, exactly, I’ve done.

Older men push younger women into behavior they don’t want is another. But our relationship is rooted in trust and centered on love.

You can’t shroud yourself in self-pity to avoid accountability.

But I want to believe we are more than the worst things we’ve ever done. If we are, I may have a shot at a real life. Not normal, just real. I also may have a shot at becoming a better person. Not good, just better. Someone, for example, who uses her money to benefit others.