(Narration) I see a lot of people. Names always evade me, but energy doesn’t. This girl’s energy feels like a trust fund and that obnoxious cologne smell of a Hollister’s clothing store. She’s only wearing some gray sweatpants and a softball tee right now, but I could picture her in fringed, denim short shorts and a tank top. I could picture her falling for some dick who rides a motorcycle and has already cheated on her more times than you could count on both hands.

(Narration, tense) I hold the phone tightly to my ear, listening to the madness being transmitted over the receiver. A steady tremor tears through my entire body. Travis looks over at me, tries to get a response from me. He’s speaking to me. He’s trying to comfort me, trying to ask what happened, but I can’t hear him. I can’t hear anything. I can’t hear anything but the screams of people outside of a dead person’s car. A dead person that it only took twenty-four hours for me to fall in love with and then lose.

(Labile, angry) “Stop reading me through the fucking phone, Thomas!”