Ryan’s Reviews > The Rachel Incident > Status Update

I felt like we were playing cover songs of our own conversations. We just didn't enjoy each other in the same way.

James was sure he was an unlovable person. Maybe it was why he had decided to accept scraps of it from Dr. Byrne.

“We knew we loved each other, but we didn't know whatto do with it, given the current circumstances, or what it meant. Neither of us knew how long this would go on for, and neither wanted to hold the other down.”

Girl 😀

"I just feel like I want to staple him to the ground, you know? Like, nail his shoes down," I said, tears slipping off my chin and onto her. "I feel like we could really do love properly, if he let me." I don't know why I was so upset. Carey and I were, technically, still together. But he couldn't be relied on, and I needed so badly to have one thing I could rely on. The uncertainty overwhelmed me.

THERE'S PLENTY OF LANGUAGE, now, for what Carey did to me in April of 2010. […] ghosting, as psychological manipulation. As gas-lighting, even. The only credit they would give him would be the fact that he rightly assessed his situation. That he was too old for me, that the relationship was doomed, that he was too childish, and that he needed to grow up and get an age-appropriate girl-friend.

"The thing about you, Rachel," he said softly, "is that you make me insane."
"Fucking hell," I blurted out. "Is that it?"
"It's true! And I make you insane!" He picked up his phone.
[…]
"Pet, listen to me. I'm twenty-seven."
"So?"
with a teenager."
"Twenty-seven is very old to be dossing off work to stay in bed
"I'm twenty-one, Carey," I spluttered. "Which you would know it you came to my birthday party."

This was the problem. I could stay with Carey for as long as I wanted, but as soon as I left, it was hard to get back in again. Like a Grimms' fairy tale, or a reverse Hotel California.

“When we had sex I could taste the day on him.”

GIRLLLLLLLLLLLLL

It was easy, now that I understood passion properly, to see why you would move heaven and earth to secure it.

“My attraction to him came on like food poisoning.”

THIS IS SO GOOD