Jen Beagin

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve made you uncomfortable with my creepy honesty.” He shook his head again.

“Not at all,” she said. “I’m actually a fan of creepy honesty.”

She’d always maintained that if everyone were forced to throw their problems in the garbage, each person would show up at the dump the following day and sift through any amount of muck to find them again.

She turned on the television and settled into a Merchant-Ivory production on PBS, breaking her rule of never watching a period piece unless she was on her period.