Uh, yeah. “You’re not psychotic, are you?”“I don’t know,” she responded. Aside from the assorted meaningless tattoos on her forearms (hearts, arrows, thin bands of pink, yellow and blue) there was the word on her collarbone: “But Ally…” he choked, his voice catching like it hadn’t since their cat Wally died behind the refrigerator. “It’s why I dress like a sophisticated nine-year-old. Ally, please, this never ends well! She could no longer recognize the 28-year-old man grilling burgers on their balcony. Matthew watched as Caz decamped for the kitchen, a move that highlighted the stark reality of this moment: he was behind the screen door and no one had invited him in.Ally stepped to the door, bowing her head and talking out the side of her mouth. )Guys always wanted to teach Ally how to drive. She wished her goodbye monologue had summoned a bit more shock and awe, but she would make do with him being gone.BY THE TIME Ally made her way through the door, her ruined shorts were sagging like a wet diaper on a toddler. Read full article. “No thanks,” she’d protested before taking his order for two shrimp appetizers. There’s nothing like someone slowly backing out of the room while pretending that they’re still right there with you to convince you that there’s an inherent problem with the curl of your bangs, the mole on your left eyebrow, or the spread of your upper thigh. She would snap her lids closed and hope that she could shake herself into a new reality, like those dreams where you recognize there may be a way out and so you start digging your way toward consciousness. Now, you were closer. But it only took a few seconds of staring down the neck of her T-shirt for Ally to realize that inhaling deeply the smell between her own boobs wasn’t going to free her from her current reality.“Ally?” Matthew asked. Part of a family. Aside from the assorted meaningless tattoos on her forearms (hearts, arrows, thin bands of pink, yellow and blue) there was the word on her collarbone: “But Ally…” he choked, his voice catching like it hadn’t since their cat Wally died behind the refrigerator. No need to answer fast. I won’t even want to do anything fun, like Meg’s barbecue or dollhouse club.”“Okay,” Caz cautioned. And the one time I tie her to my porch overnight, Becca steals her.” The confession of dog neglect was also not the worst moment of their date.That award went to the moment, after they split a Mango Tiramisu, when he asked her, point blank and without provocation, “You good at sex?” That was when Ally started to suspect that she was on some new hidden camera show being laughed at by hipsters on their laptops nationwide.When the bill came, Ally practically wrestled him to split it—she didn’t want to owe this dude anything—and in the process managed to knock over her second glass of lager, drenching her silver knit shorts (vintage, one of a kind, now seeming to disintegrate on her body). “You own me eighty seven dollars of hang time, girl.”Outside on Melrose, she waited for her Lyft.
He had the kind of slick blankness that allowed Ally to project an entire inner life onto him, like she was writing backstory for a minor character in her favorite TV series. Is that what you want?”He opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish on a hook.“Matthew, if you’ve ever loved me, please let me keep the space I’ve created for myself.”He stood there for a moment, searching her face for a trap door in, and when none presented itself, he turned down the front steps and headed back out into the dark. There was Anders, who lived “off the grid” in Mount Washington and owned a truck outfitted with an engine that drove on used cooking oil.