His attention. Sweet and intense at the same time. Like a barley sugar I could untwist from its plastic and hold in my mouth. A flood of secret pleasure.
Thank you," I said bravely, dropping the syllables cleanly, like marbles, and secretly full of the most pathetic pride imaginable. I had spoken to strangers.
I'm not saying you should wossisname. Just give yourself a chance with him." "A chance to what?" "Be with someone again." "I w-w-want to," I whispered. "But what if it goes the same way? W-what if I'm unbeable with?
When we'd moved in, she'd welcomed us. When Marius moved out, I sat on her floor and cried. I suppose I could have called any number of our friends, but that was the problem. They were friends. Even now, when I see them, which isn't as often as I sho...
Tonight there was something different. Something both deeper and shallower than friendship. Familiarity, perhaps, the sudden realisation that we lived our sealed-up little lives in closeness to each other. That we had something to share and something...
I thought of Marius. Wild, wonderful, Byronic-fantasy Marius, who had somehow found something he wanted in the everyday quietness of me. Until he hadn't.
It's something I imagine occasionally: waking up to discover civilisation has ended, leaving nothing but empty streets and silence. I don't actually want that to happen, but I ponder what I'd do, and how I'd stay alive. How it would feel to be alone,...
In daylight and up close, he was merciless, all smiles and freckles, the brightest, boldest flame a moth could wish for.
I'm not trying to upset you. I just think it's about time you moved on." "I moved on." "Have you? Because it looks a lot like standing around to me.
I never interrupt people when they're speaking because I know only too well how annoying it is. But with my every brattish interjection, the dimples deepened at the corner of his lips. And I was half-drunk on his smiling and the power of saying thing...
I have a sort of . . . thing, I suppose, for certain words. They spark inside me, somehow, turning me to touchpaper, but I don't know what they are until someone says them.
This is the story of my life: standing on the edges of things and worrying, when I'm supposed to just walk through them.
Life is so full of rough edges - small tasks and expectations that scratch you bloody and remind you that you're naked and alone.
