It was that summer, too, that I began the cutting, and was almost as devoted to it as my newfound loveliness. I adored tending to myself, wiping a shallow red pool of my blood away with a damp washcloth to magically reveal, just above my naval: queasy. Applying alcohol with dabs of a cottonball, wispy shreds sticking to the bloody lines of: perky. I had a dirty streak my senior year, which I later rectified.

I'm a true-crime addict. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but I can't stop.

There are no really new stories anymore.

You drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, that was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.

A town so suffocating and small, you tripped over people you hated every day. People who knew things about you. It's the kind of place that leaves a mark.

Republicans go to Sam’s Club, Democrats go to Costco.

Safer to be feared than loved.