Now Is Not the Time to Panic

by Kevin Wilson

You had to choose sides. And you always chose the person who didn’t fuck everything up.

I’d never felt particularly connected to Coalfield; I mean, I felt anchored to it, like the years I’d spent here would make it harder for me to live anywhere else, but I never felt shaped by it.

And so I almost never told anyone what I liked because I was terrified that they would tell me how stupid it was. Every single thing that you loved became a source of both intense obsession and possible shame. Everything was a secret.

It was beautiful, and then somebody else, the rest of the world, made it not beautiful.”