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She can’t shake the compulsion to kick over logs in her own son’s skull. I exploit this when it suits me.
After all, how many relationships subsist in these gray areas? The ambivalence-soaked air of relationship purgatory is stifling, bordering on painful—
“We’re in a bad spot, but aren’t those what define love? The downs, how you manage and endure them because who the hell has trouble with the ups? This, right now”—I splay my fingers on the table—“is the shit nobody talks about because it’s hard.”
I run my tongue across the top of my teeth and worry they’ve turned serrated.
No, I can’t hide my recklessness from Nathan. But I can invent an explanation that departs wildly from the truth.
Everything’s gonna be okay.” I permit myself to believe him, ignoring the fact that I’ve lied. His conclusion that everything’s gonna be okay rests on a foundation of untruth, and therefore, he cannot know this.
Anyone whose mind had traveled where mine had would peek at a lover’s abandoned phone. Make themselves feel better—or worse.
We’re on the fifth floor of a mid-rise comprised entirely of doctors’ offices. And we’re the only interior suite, meaning zero windows. I’m unsure if Kimberly likes it this way, a distraction-free space for delivering care. Or if she simply made the mistake of having ovaries on a floor with no fewer than twelve sets of hetero testicles. Swinging to and fro in shriveled scrotums beneath Saint Laurent slacks. Hoarding all the windows for their own private practices.
How long before it all comes apart like rotten wood?
Dinner tonight? Just us, then drinks with Tom after? The question marks mean nothing; he’s already decided. Reservations have been made.
He knows what I’m doing and when I do it. Strategically timed texts keep me uncomfortable. Payback for my mistakes.
the voices grow sharper, like bedazzled kitchen knives.
This society, it swallows up smart people. If you’re smart—and not a sociopath—you don’t stand a chance.
Poison might be a woman’s weapon, but gays take liberties with what is and is not a woman’s anything.
The uncertainty is trauma too.
Again triggered
I have no choice. I must break my own rules. My fixation on fidelity is destroying my marriage.
Everything suddenly feels like a lucid dream, but I know better than to pinch myself.
My silence tears at Nathan. He’s coming apart. His voice rattles. No longer measured or controlled. It’s a pressure-plummeting, artery-nicking catastrophe.
