Because: if our secrets define us, as opposed to the face we show the world: then the painting was the secret that raised me above the surface of life and enabled me to know who I am.

Daddy, he used to yammer on how the water was the source of life itself for him, fountain of youth and all that and—sure, it was. But it wasn’t just life for him. It was death.”

Face. Sponge Bob Shit Pants. “No?” said Platt casually, misreading

Why did you start? Why does anyone? My girl left me! Girl at the time. Wanted to be all bad and self-destructive, hah. Got my wish.

been travelling so long, hotels before dawn in strange cities, so long on the road that I feel the jet-speed vibration in my bones, in my body, a sense of constant motion across continents and

my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

“An individual heart-shock. Your dream, Welty’s dream, Vermeer’s dream. You see one painting, I see another, the art book puts it at another remove still, the lady buying the greeting card at the museum gift shop sees something else entire, and that’s not even to mention the people separated from us by time—four hundred years before us, four

I waited, as it seemed she was trying to formulate a thought, but instead she only took a sip of her wine (white; Pippa drank red) then touched me on the back of the wrist.

And as terrible as this is, I get it. We can’t choose what we want and don’t want and that’s the hard lonely truth. Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us. We can’t escape who we are.