During intermission she peeked out at the theater, watching it refill. When it was almost full and the lights blinked on and off, she saw three people file in through the center door and her breath caught. Time lapsed as they walked down the center aisle: three teenage girls all in a row. They were so big, so bright, so beautiful, so magnificent to Carmen’s eyes that she thought she was imagining them. They were like goddesses, like Titans. She was so proud of them! They were benevolent and they were righteous. Now, these were friends.

He loved her for being so beautiful, and he hated her for it. He loved how she put shiny stuff on her lips for him, and he also reviled her for it. He wanted her to walk home alone, and he wanted to run after her and grab her up before she could take another step.

She thought she would know when it happened. But now, as she looked around, she wondered if it was really like that at all. Maybe it happened in a million different ways, when you were thinking of it and you weren't. Maybe there was no gap, no jump, no chasm. You didn't forget yourself all at once. Maybe you just looked around one time or another and you thought, Hey. And there you were.

It was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldn’t obsessively reread what you’d written after you’d sent it. You couldn’t attempt to un-send it. Once you’d sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you’d said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.

The most haunting thing was not that he didn't love her anymore. She could have accepted that eventually. The most haunting thing was that he did. He loved her from afar. He loved her in a way that was preserved in time, that couldn't be sullied. And she tended it in her careful, curatorial way.

I love the idea of fictional worlds kind of all cohering in some way.

She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time