Last Light

I could lie my way out of existence.

You have to be a great liar to write fiction, a real historical revisionist.

He played like he wanted to break the piano.

That was how I wanted to feel: almost out of control.

Now it was our little joke, signifying nothing.

I stretched out alongside her and pulled the covers over us. I moved against her and sighed. There. I had one perfect thing in my life.

Why did I always do the worst things? Why did I always arrange my life so that it was on the brink of collapse?

Let’s not live like other people. Let’s not be like other couples.

He draws people in without even trying. Puts them under a spell. And then he does what he always does—lies or disappears—and you break on the rocks you were too dazed to see.

We would kiss and say things we didn’t mean. Counterfeit intimacy.

He’s the golden boy, you see? We always forgive him.

You can’t see the real world anymore. Everyone becomes a caricature.

When would it be my turn to truly know him? Fear answered: Never. You’ll never know him. You can’t hold on to a man like that.

I’ll be buried in a Presbyterian cemetery. Did you know that? I’m tired enough to go there now.

When people know you’re an author, they turn into weirdos. I swear.

I felt such pity for her, and such gratitude, too—because she let me be nobody.

Brilliant. I’d have a cult following.

So let them talk. Let the rumors fly.

I was on top, a rare thing indeed.

And Seth, who seemed so unwelcome before, now stood clearly in my mind’s eye. Vulnerable. Honest. A casualty of Matt’s game.

the way people return to a burnt home—not to salvage it, but to wade through the wreckage and suffer.

He looked beautiful, and fallen, like Lucifer.

The heart always knows what the mind refuses to accept.

She was alive in her anger, her eyes illuminated, her body electric. She gave no ground, took no excuses.

You don’t see the difference between fiction and reality. Everything is your story.

Great. They fucked with my punctuation?” “Pam says you’re overly fond of semicolons.

I don’t want to be the sun in your sky,” she continued. “Do you get what I mean? I’m happy being the moon.

She would fear the public, with its vulgar curiosity and sickening sense of entitlement.