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this point, I knew I would spill if she grilled me. I felt like a thirteen-year-old girl, bubbly with excitement and desperate to gab about my latest crush. He said this, he did that. Spare me. I was so much cooler than this.
    I boosted myself onto the edge of the U-Haul and turned on my keychain flashlight, peering into the jam of boxes and furniture. After fifteen minutes of struggling, I managed to shift out the box I was looking for. It had the word BOOKS in black Sharpie on the side.
    I dug out my worn copy of Ten Thousand Nights by M. Pierce. I flipped through its dog-eared and highlighted pages until I found the lines Matt quoted.
    There is no such thing as loneliness. There is only the idea of loneliness.
    I sighed and swung my legs from the edge of the U-Haul. God, what lines, and what a strange concept—that the fear of loneliness is the fear of a phantom.
    In the back of the book I had printouts from the LA Times book blog and clippings from The New York Times Book Review . I flipped one open and perused the first few lines.
     
M. Pierce remains a mystery, tops charts with Harm's Way
November 13, 2009
     
Almost two years after the appearance of national bestseller Ten Thousand Nights , Harm's Way , the new hardcover fiction from M. Pierce, has reached the top of the bestseller list. Like its predecessor, Harm's Way straddles (or obliterates) the boundary between genre fiction and literary fiction. Part thriller, part Kunderian inquiry and all page-turner, Harm's Way has critics going to bat...
     
    I skimmed down a few lines.
     
Little is known about the author, who declines book signings, tours or any form of public appearance in connection with his or her fiction. Knopf's lips have been sealed since the 2007 release of Ten Thousand Nights . The author's agent is rumored to be at the Granite Wing Agency, though this has never been confirmed.
     
Perhaps, like other notable reclusive writers, including Thomas Pynchon and J.D. Salinger, M. Pierce fears the effects of publicity on his or her life and prose.
     
The author's decision to remain anonymous leaves fans wanting. "Official" M. Pierce fan pages have appeared...
     
    I smirked, refolded the article, and tucked it away. God, leave the author alone.
    I owned all four of M. Pierce's books— Ten Thousand Nights , Harm's Way , Mine Brook , and The Silver Cord —which had been published at semi-even intervals between 2007 and 2012. I didn't care if I never found out who the author was, and book jacket photos are universally depressing. I just wanted another M. Pierce novel, soon.
    I studied my phone.
    I'd told my sister I called and texted Matt from Perkins. I actually called twice. I texted four times. His silence gnawed at me.
    Was he having misgivings about our... our what? Our friendship that wasn't a friendship? Our weird arrangement in which we helped one another get off?
    "Fuck this," I muttered. I called him again.
    The ringtone sounded four times.
    "Hannah."
    "Matt! Hi. Don't hang up, please. Did you hang up on my sister?"
    "Yeah."
    "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let her answer. She's a little..." I frowned. Edgy? Abrasive?
    "She's fine," Matt said. His tone was cool. "I was simply done talking."
    "Oh. So is that your thing? You hang up whenever you feel 'done talking'?"
    "Sure, why not." He gave an exaggerated sigh, like it was killing him to be on the phone with me.
    "And hey, are you only in a good mood after you jerk off? Because it's starting to feel that way."
    I heard Matt's hesitant, breathy laugh.
    "You're funny, little bird."
    "I don't feel very funny right now."
    "God, you're too cute."
    "What!" I spluttered. "Stop being crazy. I'm... I'm trying to—"
    "Trying to figure out our situation? Give up. I don't think there are any rules for this kind of thing, or any helpful guidelines. Anyway, it doesn't matter."
    There was a long pause. I held my breath. Doesn't matter? Somehow, this thing with Matt—"our situation"— did matter to me. I liked