I hope that reading my writing makes you feel like I've just given you a hug. If it doesn't, e-mail me, and I'll have to give you one in person.

I am 22 and I have seashell bones and I have just learned how to be brave. In the winter, the snow looks more like rain and I know it’s time to fall in love. This requires things of me I’m not particularly used to: a willingness to surrender control, the decision to care very little about what the world thinks of me, and a flawless shaving routine. Our first date takes place on a whim, on a Monday at 11pm. As I dress I call out to my roommate, “This is so out of character for me!” He laughs, agrees, tips a glass towards his mouth. “I’m nervous,” I say very softly, to the floor, to the walls. “I’m ready,” I say, to the ceiling, to no one at all.

For months we love each other with West Coast earnestness, organically, like something grown in a vineyard. He finds an apartment with purple shutters in the Mission. I fly to San Francisco and meet with men in plastic badges and women in floral skirts. I get a kidney infection and spend the night in the ER. The next day, I forget to take the hospital bracelet off until midway through a job interview. At JFK, he meets me at the gate and we wait for a cab in the pouring rain. I want to say, “Thank you for making me brave, for reminding me that I belong in San Francisco.” Instead I press my nose into the crook of his neck, smoke a cigarette, fidget with my dress. At my apartment we undress each other and I break out into hives, red, gashy welts that spread angrily across my face and neck. In the morning, when I wake up, they’re gone.

I am 22 and I have bony ankles and I have been in love 3.5 times. In April I have my heart broken and in June I move to San Francisco and meet a boy who lives across the street. He writes me notes and leaves them on my doorstep. We take pictures in the photobooth in Japantown and we eat fancy French food and spend money on art supplies. Every day of my first week of work, he brings me coffee at 8am and walks me to the train. In my room, with unpacked boxes all around, we watch movies on his iPad and hold each other beneath the covers. The last time I see him, I am crying on the sidewalk at 2 in the afternoon. I am embarrassed, but I keep walking by his house, because I have to, because he doesn’t live there anymore.

I am 22 and I have just moved to San Francisco and I am learning to ration myself carefully, like it’s wintertime. In a movie theater near the Tenderloin, S and I watch a documentary about the Dalai Lama. At my apartment I will myself to do the things he wants but can’t; in the morning he leaves distant, dissatisfied and suddenly I feel an inexperienced 13 all over again. Someone on the East Coast convinces himself he is in love with me and flies 3,000 miles just to see if it’s true.

I sit down next to him and read a passage from Self Help by Lorrie Moore. “When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things, but essentially it means to put your shoes on the wrong feet,” I read. He laughs and says, “That’s clever.” I continue, “It is like having a book out from the library. It is like constantly having a book out from the library.” He doesn’t know how much this hurts, doesn’t realize that my feigned wisdom has been collected from novels, newspapers, films. I am still so young and soft but it is me who has to draw these lines, who never wavers from no, attempting to stave off the residual guilt that sneaks in quietly, a midnight bandit.

I tell a friend, “I never kissed him.”
“But you let him confide in you,” she says. “You are his emotional mistress, which is so much worse.”

In the pizza place beside the jazz cafe, S tries to touch me and I let him. I go on a date to Philz Coffee with a programmer who lives in Marin; I am pushed up against the wall on a roof  by someone’s heavy mouth while the fog rolls in deep, smoothly. I get a drink with the man from the library and he says he doesn’t believe in marriage. “It’s weird,” I say, “My parents got divorced, so you’d think I’d be against getting married, but it’s just the opposite.” “That’s not weird,” he says. “You want to get married so you can show them how it’s done, prove it can work out. My parents stayed together and were miserable.” He takes a sip of his beer, rolls his shoulder blades. “Marriage is for fools.”

The next day, when he asks me to dinner, I tell him that I am happier alone.

In my apartment, I cut paper into the shape of balloons and hang them on my wall. I trim the ivy that grows in violently through the window frame. When someone tells me I’m lovely, I hide my face in my hands.

I think there will be a 20-21 year old third part, but only if I can muster the energy to write it.

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