Rachel - Love street: pulp romance for modern women

I want someone who makes me feel the way music does.

Contents

To know me is to know that I have loved you. Probably too much, probably too soon, and probably too intensely. Ever since I was a little girl Ive just loved... harder. Perhaps I learned too early that the things you hide in your heart will eat you the fuck alive... You see, for the better part of my life, I easily gave other people the power to love me, fix me, and make me feel grander than I wasI also usually gave this power to those who were unattainable or uninterested. I battled with impulse control and would easily abandon my own life with a certain level of what-the-fuckery to chase the object of my affection. Sport damour they call it in France. It was like every new relationship allowed me to feel ALIVE. Each new love bubble gave me purpose and identity and cute stories to tell my friends about how he tickled my back as we listened to Van Morrison and kissed the world away. I was addicted to the high of falling in love and terrified of the intimacy that followedbecause when things became real... so did the risk of abandonment. Because of this, I unknowingly fell in in lust with men I couldnt have. But you see, this love distracted me from my anxieties and fears about my own life and identity... this love allowed me to escape. And like all drug addicts... I am an escape artist.

I remember the first time I felt it. Pure, unadulterated dopamine straight to the heart, like sleeping in on a snow day when you were eleven years old. The weightless float I felt deep in my belly, as if flying high on a swing, the clamminess of my hands, the pitter-patter in my heart... it took me thirty-two years to realize that this feeling wasnt love. It was wonderful, but it wasnt love. Love doesnt scare you, or make you feel like youre about to rob a bank. Love cradles you and sneaks up on you and makes you feel safe and secure and like youre alone with someone together. Love is a best friend that you want to die with. Love is you telling him youll suck his dick if he can find your missing sock. (He finds it very quickly.) Love is calm and simple and terrifying. It is nothing that I thought and everything that I wanted.

Since starting this book, I slipped in love. Real l-o-v-e. It didnt feel like falling, it felt like melting into molten lava togetherthere were no games, there were no questionsI am still confused and overwhelmed at how simple it all really was. Either way, nobody knows anything. Including me...

So take what you will from the following pages, and ignore the genderslove is love is love is love.

And remember, no matter what the big bad humans tell you, its always better to be a little too much a little too soon than a little too little a little too late...

Love always,

Leah

Trying to Figure Out Whats Wrong with Him Before He Figures Out Whats Wrong with Me

One day well look back on this period of unemployment and wish we had called it FREEDOM.

W hat kind of camera is that?

I looked up and shielded my eyes from the morning ocean mist. Its an 8 mm. My uncle fixed it for me, I replied to this tall, dark stranger like the basic, artsy bitch I was.

It was early Tuesday morning, 6 a.m. to be exact, and I had decided to be one of those girls who loves life and wakes up to film the sunrise. It was hard to see because the wind was blowing and the tide was high. I guess ocean spray is actually a real thing and not just a cranberry juice cocktail that reminds me of bladder infections.

I used to have one of those. Theyre a real pain in the ass. Make everything look really beautiful, though.

I looked up again at the stranger hovering above me, this time noticing the surfboard in his hand.

You live around here? I asked.

Yeah, just around the block. Here, let me see the camera. The wind died down for a second and I blocked the sand from hitting the lens as I passed the stranger my camera. I dont know why I did it. Yes I do. Did I mention the stranger was bloody gorgeous? Dirty, hot, bearded, he was a real fucking man.

And he wanted to hold my camera! Im going to film you. Dont pay attention.

I immediately got weird and paid attention.

Why? I asked.

Because I want you to see how beautiful you look right now.

As I awkwardly acted normal and got really weird about what to do with my hands, I let the surfing stranger film me. After about 30 seconds he passed the camera back to me, smiled, and went on his merry way. I watched him disappear down the old beach boardwalk until he was a tiny speck, and then he was no more.

Frozen in the charming strangers wake, I took a seat on the sand with complete disregard for the camera or its fragile, sensitive lens. (I ruined it that day, btw.) Damn, I thought. Now that was some American Beauty shit.

I didnt even get his name! I complained to my friends later that day as I shoveled a spoonful of poke into my overly lip-glossed mouth like an anxiety-ridden female version of the prince in