Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve been eating a lot of popcorn, cereal, instant noodles, and snack bars. I have a hot plate in my bedroom, a microwave, and a small fridge. That’s the kind of kitchen I know how to get around in.

When insane things start to arrange themselves in sane patterns around you, you know you got problems.

His coworker was velvety-skinned, a sexy boy-on-the-cusp-of man.

It's often only in the lies we refuse to speak that any truth can be heard at all.

When do these three days expire?" "That's what pisses me off. I don't know. He was annoyingly vague." "The nerve. Threatening you and not being precise about it.

I felt the electricity of his body behind me as he reached around me and took the card from my hand. He didn't move away, and I battled the urge to lean back into him, seeking the comfort of his strength. Would he wrap his arms around me? Make me feel safe, if only for a moment, and if only a delusion?

All my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone.