February 26, 2019:

Through all her shifting stories her loneliness stayed clear.

Boyfriends, lovers, countries, schools: a new narrative nearly every week. Yes, she's been to this hotel before. No, this is her first time here. No, she's never had a real boyfriend before. Yes, she did, and he died.

She wants to keep herself for herself. You can perfectly understand that. Yet then she's constantly lonely, even among people. You can perfectly understand that, too.

She asks, "Do I make you lonely when we're together? Because of my problem." As if loneliness were a contagious disease.

She's kind, she's very tender. But she's reserved, where in the end that reserve causes the relationship to fail. Where the intimacy is imperfect, deliberately, yet perhaps not consciously.