Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

This story compelled Marx, in part, because his mother had never fully spoken Japanese, and he believed that was why she had spent most of her adult life lonely and sometimes depressed.

If Marx at twenty-two had a problem, it was that he was attracted to too many things and people. Marx’s favorite adjective was “interesting.” The world seemed filled with interesting books to read, interesting plays and movies to see, interesting games to play, interesting food to taste, and interesting people to have sex with and sometimes even to fall in love with. To Marx, it seemed foolish not to love as many things as you could.

Before he could tell her that he loved her, she was already inside. But he didn’t feel bad that he hadn’t said it. Sam knew that Sadie knew that he loved her. Sadie knew that Sam loved her in the same way she knew that Sam had not seen the Magic Eye.

He put his head in the crook of her shoulder; the freight was in proportion to the groove.

She liked playing games, seeing a foreign movie, a good meal. She liked going to bed early and waking up early.

To return to the city of one’s birth always felt like retreat.

But Sadie knew it was easy to get addicted to the taste of your own carnage.

“ ‘Zweisamkeit’ is the feeling of being alone even when you’re with other people.” Simon turned to look in his husband’s eyes. “Before I met you, I felt this constantly. I felt it with my family, my friends, and every boyfriend I ever had. I felt it so often that I thought this was the nature of living. To be alive was to accept that you were fundamentally alone.”