“You find diners and Laundromats. You find beaches. You find a junk car and drive it for a month, then lave it beside the road. You find someone to fall in love with you. You make it all up as you go. Or, you know, maybe it makes you up.”

But how he acts, and what he says, and what he does, and who he is, they don’t line up anymore, and the lie is in that not lining up, the lie is in not being what she needs but pretending that he is. No one says a word, and she sees it every minute they have together.

You can have an argument with someone who’s a sceptic. When I say ‘cynic’, I mean someone who has given up, and they want you to give up too, so it makes them feel better about themselves.

All of it seems like noise and false light, and all I want for tonight is quiet, the black and gray of a summer night, and a girl in a pink dress, beside me forever.