It’s hard to look the people you love in the face when they’ve seen you fuck up everything you touch. Sometimes, it’s easier to rebuild your life if you’re with someone who’s been as low as you’ve been.

Was it tacky to get a cake during a hostage crisis? What was the protocol? She pictured chocolate frosting with white lettering: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOPE YOUR DAUGHTER ISN’T DEAD. But this year was her fiftieth, a year with a zero. Veronica had to do something. So on her way to the condo she’d swung by a bakery and picked up a small German chocolate cake. It was her mom’s favorite — or at least it had been, a decade ago.-page 218 of The Thousand Dollar Tan Line