The final part of my short story! Ellipses The best times are the simplest: leaning towards each other over the counter, teasing and being teased by Nora. Sprawling out on the couch with a bowl of white cheddar popcorn, talking about books for hours, piling up phone bills. Him catching me as I walk down [...]

Here’s Part Nine! Comma It’s a role reversal. Others constantly tried to make me laugh, like it was some sort of game they were going to win. I loved that, but not as much as I love those rare occasions when I’ll say or do something and he will actually laugh out loud. The only [...]

Here is part eight of my short story!! Colon I erupt finally, and I get the feeling he’s hiding a grin, “Why don’t you just make me a list of all the things you think are lame and then you’ll never have to tell them to me again!” He smiles that half smile that used [...]

Ampersand I know that Dad still doesn’t like him. Yes, he was rude to him the first time they met, but I would have thought that of anyone Dad would understand the need to protect yourself through words. But being glib isn’t the best way to get on Dad’s good side, and when Dad finally [...]

Part Seven! Hyphen Other than that one time with the 2,507 miles (his front step to mine, a moment I replay again and again), he never talks about the future. I tell him about working in D.C. someday, about being a speechwriter. I tell him about all the places I want to visit and the [...]

Part Six! Parentheses Books start disappearing from my shelves, but I’m not worried. They’re always returned soon—usually the next day, though how he can be with the family he’s visiting and manage to read Housekeeping all in one day is beyond me—with notes scribbled in the margins, and I smile. Some books have more notes [...]

Tonight, the hum is as loud as it ever could be. The smoggy night air makes strange light dilations from the neon woman. The pink of underclothes dyes my sterile white wall. The time on the clock on my bedside table blinks 0345. I know, I know, clock. I know I should be sleeping. Tonight, [...]

Part Five Backslash He is the whole world.. He’s adventure and books I never would have thought of reading and movies I would never watch and ways of looking at things that I couldn’t have imagined. Not everybody sees what I see. And maybe he’s the bad boy, but he’s going to be a good [...]

Most nights, I struggle to sleep, and I think it’s because the city hum is so loud. These walls that separate me from the apartments around me are not even paper thin, it’s like plastic wrap. If you try, you can see your neighbors, you can hear them, and if you wanted, the walls would [...]

Part Four Quotation Marks I like the way he says my name, rolling the syllables around on his tongue. He knows the weight of every word, but when he says this one, I feel as though it has more weight or meaning than any other word in the world. I have a lot of dreams, [...]