Page 90 of Six Ways to Write a Love Letter

“Yep.”

“Val Young, druggie. Celeste Yi, homewrecker.” Val flashed a bright smile. “Vivi Swan, pop star.”

Remy narrowed his eyes at Val. They’d rarely spoken of Vivi since Remy got back—and Remy was eager to keep it that way. He already thought about her all the time; he didn’t need Val to turn thinking about her all the time into talking about her all the time.

“You keep trying to break people into parts, brother,” Val said, shaking his head at Remy’s expression. “You’ve always done that. There was me, the musician, then me, the addict. There’s our parents, the religious psychos. We change titles, sometimes—there was you, the drummer, then the caretaker, now the producer—but you always want to narrow people down to a single thing. Shit, that’s why you’re a great producer—you’re good at boiling a song down into a simple, single thing and driving that point home hard as fuck. But that’s not what life is. That’s not what people are.”

Remy narrowed his eyes. “What’s your point, brother?”

“That I’m an addict and a musician and your brother and a really good lay, is my point.I am large. I contain multitudes.”

“You said that before. Did you write it?” Remy asked.

“Nah, Walt Whitman,” Val said, grinning. “I’d have said,I contain a fuckton of multitudes.”

“Deep.”

“I know. But I do, indeed, contain a fuckton of multitudes, brother. And don’t forget that you do too—and so does she.”