Quotes from Abby Geni, The Wildlands, 2018

That was where friendships were smelted from unrefined ore into pure metal: two girls staying up past their bedtime, painting one another's nails, trying on one another's clothes, wondering about ghosts, confiding secrets, swapping tokens of undying affection, hours of whispering in the darkness.

A corpulent man strolled in front of us, sweating and drinking soda from a straw. He was fat enough that each step cost him something.

Time kept passing without my consent.

The sea was an abstract painting: a band of azure sky above a swatch of indigo water above a ribbon of wet brown sand above a smear of hazel beach... It seemed like the kind of place you might encounter in dreams: too raw and wild to be real, yet somehow familiar at the same time, an ancient impression belonging to my species, imprinted in my genetic code, a knowledge deeper than memory.

At the far edge of my view was the ocean... I could not make sense of its size and grandeur. It was not a pond, not a lake, but a second sky, bluer and more chaotic than the one above it.

The night was filled with insects and a hesitant breeze that seemed to change direction with each gust.