Love on the Brain

by Ali Hazelwood

“Food will be . . .” he starts, and then stops when he turns around and sees me in the room. I grab two fistfuls of my shirt and pretend to curtsy. “Thank you for this gown, my good sir.”

She’s everything I ever wanted and I want to inject her into my veins and also to never see

“Can you stay? Please? I know you’d probably rather be—” “Nowhere else,” he says, without skipping a beat. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“There hasn’t been anyone else.” His jaw tenses and works. “Since the first moment I saw you. Since the first moment I talked to you and made an ass of myself, there hasn’t been anyone else.”