I was using all the tricks-window open to the October air, radio loudly playing-anything to stay awake at this unearthly hour. I had left her house, where we had spent the night listening to Eric Clapton Unplugged and fumbling with each other far into the morning, and I was on my way home, preserving the fiction I was not spending the night. I was sharing the road with 18 wheelers, massive beasts shoving air aside, rocking my little blue car from each side as they roared past. She wasn’t an…See More

There's dirt in that corner, I noticed. One eye open, face down, halfway between sleep and consciousness, with my head turned to one side, I saw that there was dirt encrusted into the corner of the room. My sister had said I could stay here for a while, but she didn't say it like she meant it. She had the instinctive jealousy any woman has when another female, even her own blood, is in the same house-she had no reason for concern, but I'd never be able to convince her of that. I saw the dirt,…See More