I won’t speak to him again. I should’ve known that I’d never be good enough for him. If I’d just gone to the bar when he asked me, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. The girl with the great shoes is probably a vegetarian, I don’t want to know who she is, fucking slut.

Willpower I

Willpower I

He called, left a message, but I was a Teflon woman—everything slid off me.

Willpower II

Willpower II

For about fifteen minutes.

Graduation Party

Graduation Party

He invited me to his cousin’s graduation party. I was more than a little excited. This definitely meant that he wanted to be my boyfriend soon. You don’t just take your fuckbuddy to your cousin’s grad party. His younger cousin had passed all her exams, which took everyone by surprise; her mother sprang into action, planning the entire gathering in less than a day. The party was in Selfoss, an hour drive for us, but it’s where his family lives. I borrowed my mom’s car, and as we drove past the lava fields at Hellisheiði, he told me that all his cousins on his mother’s side had competed in the Miss Southern Iceland pageant—it’d practically become a sport in his family. He’s good-looking, too, but he isn’t into these girls who cake on makeup for the county fair. I’m probably the first girl his cousin will meet who still has hair on her pussy.

I felt like a weed among the roses at the party; he didn’t introduce me to anyone, and he didn’t speak to anyone. He’d brought a book, which he read in a bedroom while his aunts and his mom sized me up in the living room. He hates chitchatting at these gatherings, it’s pointless, he says, so he always packs something to read. He says that parties give him time to enrich his internal life, to learn in the midst of mediocrity. He’s had enough of talking about the weather and how school is going.

After a while, his mom settled on introducing me as “a friend of her son.” Then his grandmother, who had sunk into a deep recliner in the living room, called out, “You know he has kids?” as she nibbled creamy cake from a tiny fork.

The aunts waited for the penny to drop. “Yes, I know about that,” I answered, holding my voice steady.

His grandmother continued: “I don’t think he’ll ever finish university. He really loves to read.” She let out a raspy laugh as she bent forward in the recliner, her plate seeming to refill itself with her daughter’s endless pastries.

His Children

His Children