Biography of X

by Catherine Lacey

It’s not as if I would have died from it. Not immediately.

Mr. Vine had made the common mistake of seeing an absence of conflict as the presence of devotion.

No one wants to believe that they are, at heart, more interested in comfort than in truth.

Everything blurs when held too near.

There are some times in grief when being witnessed is the only thing you need, and there are others, months and years in my case, when nothing suits but invisibility.

I’d never, ever reached the end of anything, even things I was glad to be done with, with any feeling other than grief.

Relief is often a stronger and more layered pleasure than happiness,