Extraits

Maybe lifting someone else’s weight makes yours a little more bearable.

You’ve been silent your whole life. You were silent when we met, silent when you suffered. Silent when life kept hitting you. I was like that too, a little. But not like you. You are a stillness. And I tried to move you. It didn’t work. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t move me. I heard everything you didn’t say. I heard it so loudly that I couldn’t shut it off. Your silence, Senna, I hear it so loudly.

Day 1

I wrote a novel. I wrote a novel and it was published. I wrote a novel and it cruised onto the New York Times Bestseller List. I wrote that novel and then I watched it play out in a movie theater with a large, buttery bag of popcorn in my lap. My novel. That I wrote. I did it all alone, because that’s how I like it. And if the rest of the world wants to pay for a peek into my discombobulated mind, so be it. Life is too short to hide your wrongs. So I hide myself instead.

It’s my thirty-third birthday. I wake up in a cold sweat. I am hot. No, I am cold. I am freezing. The blankets tangled around my legs feel unfamiliar—too smooth. I pull at them, trying to cover myself. My fingers feel thick and piggy against the silky material. Maybe they’re swollen. I can’t tell because my brain is sluggish, and my eyes are glued shut, and now I’m getting hot again. Or maybe I’m cold. I stop fighting the blankets, letting myself drift … backwards .… backwards…