This is a preview of the short story Nightstand, written 2008. This is Isaac's favorite story.
She’s so goddamn beautiful. Not the movie-star kind of beautiful, not the kind you see on every magazine cover. She’s not the one you notice from a block away, or the one that your friends will visualize at night, panting heavily. She just shines, shines with the kind of radiant light that you describe as unique but in a good way, that one seashore conch shell designed as if by god to make the longest-lasting echo.
She reminds you of the sea, too—the way she swishes her hair, the way she smells, even something in the smooth way she walks—and the energy flows unceasingly except for those lazy little swirls you see sometimes, pretty in their own right so that you just want to run up and play with them. She makes you smile just thinking about her, and you think about her all the time. You’ll spend hours looking for her just so you can offer a passing hello. She notices you most of the time, and you feel alternately warm and cold inside as you think about the times she did, and didn’t.