“What is wrong with me, that even this fucking loser won't give me what I want?”
Work
A couple becomes obsessed with their friend hearing them have sex, then seeing them have sex ... until they can't have sex without him; a ten-year-old's birthday party takes a sinister turn when she wishes for "something mean"; a woman finds a book of spells half hidden at the library and summons her heart's desire: a nameless, naked man; and a self-proclaimed "biter" dreams of sneaking up behind and sinking her teeth into a green-eyed, long-haired, pink-cheeked coworker.
Quotes
Showing 1-15 of 15
Kristen Roupenian
Canonical work source
“What is wrong with me, that even this fucking loser won't give me what I want?”
“Still, she really did seem to be absurdly into this. It was almost existentially unsettling, that two people in such close physical proximity could be experiencing the same moment so differe...”
“Why do you like me? Why can't you tell I'm not that into you?”
“Every so often, over the next day or so, she would find herself in a gray, daydreamy mood, missing something, and she'd realize that it was Robert she missed, not the real Robert but the Rob...”
“Whenever he was bored or anxious, his brain distracted itself by worrying at the question of whether he could ever make Anna like him, like a dog working the last bits of marrow from a bone.”
“Perhaps the problem with adulthood was that you weighed the consequences of your actions too carefully, in a way that left you with a life you despised.”
“He unrequitedly loved Anna; Anna unrequitedly loved Marco; Marco probably unrequitedly loved some rando none of them had ever met. The world was pitiless. Nobody had any power over anyone el...”
“Given how little contact Ted had now with actual Anna, it was like he was in a relationship with an imaginary friend.”
“She puts her head on his shoulder, and for a second, it's like the other good night, the night of the bonfire, the brief lifting of the yoke, freedom from the circle: Marco hurting Anna, Ann...”
“Ted was wildly uncomfortable. He wasn't quite sure who Rachel was on a date with, but it didn't seem to be him. He'd contributed nothing to the outing; as far as he could tell, she could hav...”
“Did he even exist in her mind, as a living, breathing, thinking person? He spent so much time trying to figure out what she was thinking, but what kind of a consciousness did she imagine liv...”
“For the first time, Ted imagined fucking Anna the way he (almost) fucked Rachel: cruelly, without concern for her comfort, fully acknowledging that as much as he loved her, he hated her, too...”
“He'd never empathized with Rachel more than he did in those moments, imagining what it would be like to be innocently eating lunch with a person who had been acting for all the world as thou...”
“And yet sometimes he'd lie awake at night imagining Rachel telling her story to a tribunal of all the girls who'd ever rejected him, regaling them about his deceptions, the way he'd pretende...”
“She doesn't know what to call it—this free-falling sensation she feels every time she looks at Taylor, like her hands are closing again and again on emptiness—but she thinks she knows better...”