One Last Stop

by Casey McQuiston

“Remember the rules. Number one—” “Us versus everyone.” “And number two—” “If they’re gonna kill you, get their DNA under your fingernails.”

Truth is, when you spend your whole life alone, it’s incredibly appealing to move somewhere big enough to get lost in, where being alone looks like a choice.

“I can’t decide if I’m impressed or horrified.” “My favorite emotional place,” Myla says. “That’s where horny lives.”

“Sometimes. But, you know, that feeling? When you wake up in the morning and you have somebody to think about? Somewhere for hope to go? It’s good. Even when it’s bad, it’s good.”

She’s going to have to say this out loud, isn’t she? Bella Swan, eat your horny little Mormon heart out.

Your friendly smile of acceptance—from the safe position of heterosexuality,’” Jane reads aloud, “‘isn’t enough. As long as you cherish that secret belief that you are a little bit better because you sleep with the opposite sex, you are still asleep in your cradle . . . and we will be the nightmare that awakens you.’”

If she looked at me the way she looks at you, my IUD would have shot out like a party popper.”

“Sometimes the point is to be sad, August. Sometimes you just have to feel it because it deserves to be felt.”