All the Missing Girls

I sent him a text

It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards

He left, and the bruise was already forming.

There is nothing more dangerous, nothing more powerful, nothing more necessary and essential for survival than the lies we tell ourselves.

It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards.
—SØREN KIERKEGAARD

But maybe there was nothing more intimate than someone knowing all your secrets, every one of them, and sitting beside you anyway, buying your favorite food, running his fingers absently through your hair so you can sleep.

Then they would’ve seen that perhaps there is nothing more passionate than loving someone in spite of yourself.

Statistics say an unplanned attack will likely come from them.

It’s typically men who commit murder in the heat of passion. Their fingers tightening of their own accord around our slender necks. Their practiced arm swinging forward in an arc, beyond their own intention, into our fragile cheekbones. Passion. Heat. Instinct.

That we collide with the people we need, that we meet the ones who will love us, that there’s some underlying reason to everything.