“I drove right up the edge of a cliff that Noah used to do jumps off of in the summers when he was a teenager. He’s still a teenager, I guess. He’d never not be a teenager, at least. He’d be sixteen forever now.”

“Whether the tears could be attributed to her extraordinary grasp on the subject matter at hand, the abject failings of American economics, her intimidation tactics, or her hotness, no one could really say.”

“They didn’t tell us that we were walking around with mirrors, each patient skewed to reflect a part of ourselves we couldn’t ignore.”

“We had so much silence to give. Each of us had ceased to investigate the other’s life long ago. For some time inquisitiveness grew easily in the fertile ground of my suspicion; I trusted her less, and this made me the more curious one.”

“That was enough, in my mind, to explain why I felt like a feather being lifted by some sort of artificial breeze every time I exited my life to enter Vic’s. Like a door slamming and me floating across the Bay Bridge in one instant. A kid’s adventure.”

“He looked directly at me for the first time, and I saw those same flecks of hazel in his irises that had once made me think of sunlight peeking through the redwood trees nearby my childhood home. Now, they were just colors that were a part of his eyes.”

“They had assembled in a protective blanket, their wings beating in waves that caused their dwelling to pulsate in shimmering patterns. The very stone seemed to breathe with each sonic ripple, heaving angrily at the intruder in its midst.”

“And, by the way, this happened yesterday, but yesterday was August 2, 2022, and the vaccine proved very successful and people no longer have to socially distance, unfortunately, which is why he was within six feet of me.”

“Falling back into this place is more comfortable than ever and you spend a few months wondering what the difference is, if the best really has been saved for last.”

“And all the efforts you had put toward ideology turn away from the abstract and toward the immediate. It is in this moment that you begin to focus on survival—or as Lucy called it, love.”

“On Halloween night 2007, Jack walked into a tree branch and cracked open his first beer. The latter happened first. He was fifteen and angry.”

“And she couldn’t explain this very specific kind of terror. Because it was also a curiosity. Like she was eager for a bad thing to happen. To discover a bad thing for herself.”

“The airport was cool and whistled with air-conditioning. When I finally drifted off to fitful sleep I dreamt of ice floes and great white bears.”

“I guess on paper, the roadie’s job is to lift equipment, and I guess to some extent that’s what I do—plus a little bit more. I lift instruments, speakers, rigging, microphones, cameras, comatose bodies, the ethical burden of this lifestyle. And it would all be worth it.”

“She was wearing watermelon lip gloss but no mascara and she still wanted to swim. Starting birth control next year sounded like unscented lipstick and two layers of mascara and partial submersion with no movement. And Grace sounded like she was ready for that.”

“As I fought with myself, my eye fell on a young woman violently throwing her arms around a handsome soldier in clean uniform who, after a long embrace, kissed her so powerfully it seemed his lips would never leave hers again.”

“I saw them piling flowers and spices and herbs and coins in piles into a gleaming river and pushing it off into my world.”

“And Luca knows well that this is just being angsty, this unavoidable condition of his age along with all the other bullshit, but he also wants to say something, to know if Aristide, in all his outward composure, ever feels the same.”

“But wasn’t it all a little… artificial? The corporate suit a mask for boredom. The fancy boyfriend a show-and-tell piece.”

“As I floated and sank at the same time, I wondered if this was what people saw before drowning to their death.”