Ottessa Moshfegh

Why should my heart ache for anyone but myself? If anyone was trapped and suffering and abused, it was me. I was the only one whose pain was real. Mine.

On the contrary, being kidnapped was something of a secret wish of mine. At least then I’d know that I mattered to someone, that I was of value. Violence made much more sense to me than any strained conversation.

I wondered what sort of ecstasy there was to be had without shame to incite it.

rustle in the draft

I loved Reva, but I didn’t like her anymore.

We’d been friends since college, long enough that all we had left in common was our history together, a complex circuit of resentment, memory, jealousy, denial,

. Let them all go bald and burn in hell.”

Reva had a thing for older men, as did I.

“I’m just worried about you. Because I care. Because I love you,” she’d say.

Ironically, her desire to be classy had always been the déclassé thorn in her side. “Studied grace is not grace,”