Megan Crane

“As I look back over the other best friendships I've had that also ended, I wonder if, in addition to simply having a finite amount of time for such intimacy, we also have certain periods in our lives in which we seek out people who seem to embody the things we lack. Then, when we gain those things for ourselves, we no longer need that friend in the same way, which causes a serious dissonance in the relationship. Perhaps this is why these particular friendships burn so bright and then disappear so completely.”

“Nights with David the Physicist are upsetting,” she said. “And unconnected.” She sighed, took a drag, exhaled. “There is talking, about a thousand things. Laughter. Even some kissing. And then nothing. Nothing inspires him, if you see what I mean.”“I’m not sure I do.”She shrugged. “Nothing impacts him, I don’t think. His head, maybe his heart, these things are involved in the moment. I believe they are. But then the moment is over and he never thinks of it again. Or chooses not to care.”I slumped back in my seat. “He cares,” I said. “I mean, I’ve seen him. When he looks at you, it’s like no one else exists.”“And when he looks away,” Cristina said quietly, “it is as if I don’t exist.” She toyed with her cigarette. “I don’t think he means to be cruel. I think he might think he is being kind instead.” She smiled. “After all, he cannot control what I feel. What the things he does make me feel. Or the things he does not do.”“I greatly dislike him,” I said.“I wish I did.” Cristina sighed. “But what would be the point? He is like a storm. You don’t like or dislike something of nature, you just try to survive it and hope for the best. Right?”“I don’t think he’s a force of nature,” I countered. “I think he’s just a coward. There’s no way he likes anyone more than he likes you.”“Maybe not,” Cristina agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that everything automatically leads to a happy ending. I don’t think there will be any happy ending with David the Physicist, Alex. I think there will maybe be one or two other nights I will have to survive, and then he will disappear because he’s a coward or because he just will, and I will cry some more and smoke some more and never know why.”

“The woman was the kind of woman that the British find breathtakingly sexy and I could never figure out why. She had short, dark hair that was a little bit spiky on top and a curvy little body. She was cute, I supposed, but was no goddess. She wasn't worthy of him. And yet Sean looked like he wanted to eat her up.”

“I wasn't sure I was ready to go home. I believed that this city was magical. That it sang to me. And it seemed to me that once you happened upon magical places you should stay there, happily ever after.”

“Adulthood is knowing that a fully realized character is always more important than the lines.”

“Sometimes I think I'll never really belong anywhere, or trust anyone. I think I need to learn how to stop caring about that.""You can't decide not to care," Sean said. "You can only control your response.""Is that really possible?" I asked."It really is," he said. "It even starts to get a little bit easier.""Really?" My voice sounded like a stranger's. "When?”

“Aside from the posters, wherever there was room, there were books. Stacks and stacks of books. Books crammed into mismatched shelves and towers of books up to the ceiling. I liked my books.”

“I felt something swell in me then. It wasn't desparate, or triumphant, or any of the things I was used to feeling around men. This was quiet and thrilling, and new. It felt like it might spill out from me, and fill whole rooms. It felt like gladness.”

“We didn't have wings, but we could dance.”

“Maybe being an adult wasn't crossing some arbitrary age line into wisdom. Maybe it was like anything else - training wheels and mistakes, trial and error, and now and again that feeling that you might have wings.”

“The truth was that I'd been spending years running away from myself. I hid myself in drama, silliness, stupidity, banality. So afraid to grow up. So afraid to involve myself in relationships where I might be expected to give the same love I got - instead of sixth-grade shenanigans. I bored myself with all the when I grow up nonsense, but I was worried it would never happen even as I longed for it.”

“I thought that probably meant something - that we could only really look at each other through a looking glass. Literally.I didn't know where that thought came from, but I could feel that it was true. It had something to do with the two of us, seemingly so different, standing there side by side. There was no wall between us. But we both wanted to think there was.”

“Forgiveness and acceptance, I thought as we found a spot near the largest tree in the lobby. Although I'd been kidding with Georgia, I was pretty sure those were the keys to relationships. Everything else was just ego and hurt feelings.”

“It had seemed so foreign to me - the idea that you could move forward without a painful airing of grievances on both sides. But maybe - maybe it wasn't necessary to pick apart pain. Maybe some things just weren't worth fighting about. Some friends weren't friends anymore, but family - and there were different rules for family. It didn't make sense to sit down with family and detail all the reasons they'd upset you - for many reasons, not least among them the fact that they could whip out a checklist of your transgressions themselves. And after you'd both picked apart the carcasses, why would you want to be friends again? Maybe the important thing was to recognize that everyone felt wronged and slighted - but the point worth concentrating on was that everyone loved each other. If we worked from that premise, we should be fine. Or anyway, I hoped we would.”

“Some people lusted after cars, which had never made sense to me. For me, bookshelves could inspire whole spontaneous sonnets, so maybe it was an each to her own scenario.”

“I was fuzzy on the details, but I knew the basic outline. I knew how I wanted to be, it was simply a question of being who I wanted to be.I thought I had had it all figured out before. I'd had the plan perfectly clear in my head. I wasn't going to cross into thirty without the triple crown in hand: serious boyfriend, career, and great friends..It was time to accept that maybe, just maybe, I didn't have to have it all figured out by the time I turned thirty. Maybe I could just work on me, and see what else fell into place.I was pretty sure that was otherwise known as living.”

“I had a rule about stilettos, and it was this: I didn't wear them unless I planned to kick ass in them. Stilettos were for striding and sauntering, never sulking.”

“I had great plans to surgically excise the quaking, complaining teenager within someday. If I could just get rid of her and her thousands upon thousands of issues - Do I look fat? Am I ugly? Will anyone ever love me? Will I always be alone? Is she fatter than me? How ugly am I? Are they making fun of me? - I was convinced I would immediately become the sort of casual and laid back adult person who was forever smiling and was genuinely unconcerned with the size and/or shape of her body.I wasn't holding my breath.”

“I think the important thing to remember is that all relationships benefit from a bit of breathing room. Especially friendships. It's only when you find yourself without the women who understand you that you realize there are very few women who will.”

“For me, without question and despite certain Oracle of Delphi moments concerning my own thighs, it was my belly. The belly that refused to turn into abs no matter how many crunches I performed or how few carbs I ate. (This obviously led to alternating phases wherin there were no crunches and only carbs, to soothe the pain.) Either way, the belly hung there over the edge of my otherwise fabulous low-slung jeans, rounded and spiteful, despite my best efforts. I was convinced the belly made me a troll. That it was disfiguring. That it was the outward evidence of my true inner unlovableness. No one could convince me otherwise.”