Most queers couldn’t survive a minute without friends—and I am an especially hopeless case. To those wonders not otherwise mentioned who provided crucial support during the process of writing this book: Wilder Allison, the late John Allen, Margaret Allen, Ari Banias, Elissa Bassist, Nicholas Boggs, Greg Brown, Michelle Chan Brown, Julie Buntin, Casey Cep, Serena Chopra, Jennifer duBois, Emma Eisenberg, Genevieve Frisch, Sarah Frisch, Phoebe Gloeckner, Jeremy Hamilton, Henry Hoke, Allegra Hyde, Becky James, Tennessee Jones, Reese Kwon, Gabriella Levine, Karan Mahajan, Sallie Merkel, Nina McConigley, Coco Moseley, Nicole Salazar, sam sax, Michael Sears, Vaughn Shinall, Jay Sibara, Susan Steinberg, Barrett Swanson, Riley Wise, and everyone I missed, which is probably another dozen people.

Special thanks especially to the extra special people who tolerated and supported and loved me in the darkest moments of the journey of these stories, my perfect cohort—Fatima Kola, Brendan Bowles, Kate Folk, and Matthew Denton-Edmundson—for making my work so much better, for caring for me, for so many hikes and picnics and bonfires and so few hugs, restaurants, and dance parties. I’m so grateful we ended up together. Melissa Febos, Claire Vaye Watkins, Braden Marks, LuLing Osofsky, Becca Albee, and Josie Sigler for answering my communiques instantly and lovingly and talking me through the hardest parts; Maud Streep, Francesca Mari, and Miranda Featherstone for being my first and oldest writing friends; Yelena Akhtiorskaya, for wild swims and thunderstorms; Michelle Chun, for Brandon and Leopold, assorted dogs, and “writing group”; Aurora Masum-Javed, from Iliamna to the Porcupines; Margaret Ross, preplague South Bay copilot and “best friend from college,” for indulging hours of my walk-writing and letting me see things from time to time through the filter of your brilliant mind; Kirstin Valdez Quade for reading everything I wrote for almost a decade and being by my side for a quarter of my life on numerous continents; Julie Rossman, Josh Arnoudse, Raky Sastri, Olivia Verdugo, Elisabeth Halliday-Quan, Duncan Riddell, and Gwen Tulin for between twenty-four and thirty-six years of friendship apiece but especially, in this case, veronique d’entremont for squeezing pus and blood from pumps embedded in my body; Emily Ray Reese (and Leonard and Frida) for treks and laughter; Ali Shapiro, for wolf fur and overtime; Sarah LaBrie for doughnuts and sharing work; Young Jean Lee for walks at dawn in sorrow.

And thank you, lastly, to my family of origin for their years of support and love, especially Marion Belcher and Sandy, Evy, and Lola Anton; my parents, John and Sarah, and my siblings, Chris, Annie, and Gillian. Thank you for letting me follow this bleak and restless path. And, lastly, thanks to my niblings: Jonah, Remy, Jacob, Cole, and Eden. I feel better about the future when I think of you five out there being weird for the rest of us.

Sending all of you back love that will never be enough.

About the Author

© Emily Ray Reese