How It Ended: New and Collected Stories - By Jay McInerney Page 0,69

he thinks it will make him feel better if he fucks us over and makes us hurt the way he was hurt, because that's what it's all about if you ask me—we're all sitting around here on earth working through our hurts, trying to pass them along to other people and make things even. Chain of pain.

Old Skip kept telling me how dumb I was. You wish, Jack. Funny thing is, dumb is his type. He doesn't want to go out with anybody who might see through him, so he picks up girls like me. Girls he thinks will believe everything he says and fuck him the first night and not be real surprised when he never calls again.

If you're so smart, Skip, how come you don't know these things? If you're so mature, what were you doing with me?

Men. I've never met any. They're all boys. I wish I didn't want them so much. I've had a few dreams about making it with girls, but it's kind of like—sure, I'd love to visit Norway sometime. My roommate Jeannie and I sleep in the same bed and it's great. We've got a one-bedroom, and this way the living room is free for partying and whatever. I hate being alone, but when I wake up in some guy's bed with dry come on the sheets underneath me and he's snoring like a garbage truck, I go, let me out of here. I slip out and crawl around the floor groping for my clothes, trying to untangle his blue jeans from mine, my bra from his Jockeys—Skip wears boxers, of course—and trying to be quiet at the same time, then slide out the door laughing like a seal escaping from the zoo and race home to where Jeannie has been warming the bed all night. Jumping in between the sheets and she wakes up and goes, I want details, Alison: length and width.

I love Jeannie. She cracks me up. She's an assistant editor at a fashion magazine, but what she really wants to do is get married. It might work for her, but I don't believe in it. My parents have seven marriages between them, and anytime I've been with a guy for more than a few weeks I find myself looking out the window during sex.

I call up my friend Didi to see if she can lend me the money. Her dad's rich and gives her this huge allowance that she spends all on blow. She used to buy clothes, but now she wears the same outfit for four or five days in a row, and it's pretty gross, let me tell you. Sometimes we have to send the health department over to her apartment to open the windows and burn the sheets.

I get Didi's machine, which means she's not home. If she's there she unplugs the phone, and if she's not she turns on the answering machine. Either way it's pretty impossible to talk to her. I don't know why I bother. She sleeps from about noon till like nine or so. If Didi made a list of her favorite things, I guess cocaine would be at the top and sunlight wouldn't even make the cut. So she can be hard to get hold of.

My friends and I spend half our lives leaving each other messages. Luckily I know Didi's access code, so I dial again and listen to her messages to see if I can figure out where she is. Okay, maybe I'm just nosy.

The first one's from Brian, and from his voice I can tell that he's doing Didi, which really blows me away since Brian is Jeannie's old boyfriend. Except that Didi is less interested in sex than any of my friends, so I'm not really sure. Maybe he's just starting to make his move. A message from her mom—Call me, sweetie, I'm in Aspen. Then Phillip, saying he wants his $350 or else. Which is when I go, what am I, crazy? I'm never going to get a cent out of Didi. And if I do find her, she'll try to talk me into getting wired with her, and I'm trying to stay away from that. I'm about to hang up when I get a call on the other line, my school telling me that my tuition hasn't been received and that I won't be able to go to class until it is. Like, what do you think I've been frantic about for the last twenty-four